Rafa Benitez says that the squad at Jurgen Klopp’s disposal is much better than the one he had when he was Reds boss – although there are no guarantees of anything in cup finals.
The Spaniard has a point – the depth that the Reds have this season is vastly greater than what he had to work with, or indeed what Klopp had to work with against Real Madrid this time last year.
Speaking to James Pearce on the Liverpool ECHO Blood Red podcast, Benitez said: “I want to be very respectful to my team, but this team is much better.
“Not just the team, but the squad. In my time, we had Torres as a striker, and Ngog that was a really good player and a really good lad, but we paid £1.5 million for him.
“Now you can see you have Salah, but you have Shaqiri, you have Sturridge, you have Origi. It’s totally different. They have a lot of good players.”
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With 12 substitutes places to fill for tonight’s game, the big squad will be needed.
The likes of James Milner, Xherdan Shaqiri and Divock Origi are likely to be the Reds’ game-changers off the bench, and it could be another European game decided by someone who didn’t start, as was the case with Gini WIjnaldum in the semi-final.
It doesn’t matter who puts the ball in the net – the only important thing is that those in red score more than Spurs and bring home a sixth European Cup to parade around Merseyside tomorrow.