Jurgen Klopp has labelled Unai Emery as ‘the king of cups’ after Liverpool progressed through to the semi-finals of the Champions League last night and set up a clash with Villarreal.
The La Liga outfit progressed through to the last four after defeating both Bayern Munich and Juventus across two legs in the previous rounds.
Emery’s side are only in Europe’s premier competition this season as a result of defeating Manchester United on penalties in the Europa League final last season.
The Spaniard also led Arsenal to the final of Europe’s second competition back in 2019, only for the Gunners to be defeated by Chelsea in Azerbaijan.
And after Klopp secured Liverpool’s passage through to the semi-finals with a 6-4 aggregate defeat of SL Benfica last night, the German was keen to praise Emery.
“If I could do an analysis of Villarreal right now that would be very strange,” Klopp told BT Sport (via the Metro).
“I saw the results, the game was very impressive.
“I only picked up pieces but to beat Juventus and Bayern Munich they deserve to be in the Champions League semi-finals.
“Unai Emery is the king of the cups, it is unbelievable what he is doing. But give me a bit of time to prepare it properly.”
The boss of the La Liga outfit has won the Europa League on four separate occasions – he won three in a row with Sevilla as well as the success he tasted last season with his current side.
In addition to this, he won another seven trophies during his time in charge of PSG including a league title and two French cups.
He certainly has experience and he’s proved this season that he knows how to set up his side to earn impressive results both home and away in Europe.
Last night’s result means we remain in contention to complete a historic quadruple this term – we just need to continue taking each game as they come and it’ll be interesting to see the silverware we end up with come the end of the season.