Topic: Number 7

[tubby]

I'd be more worried about City than Bayern, who don't really look like the same outfit as last year.

[StevoHimself]

Might rely on us drawing our CL bitches (Porto) again.

Is there absolutely no chance of fans in the ground for the final then?

Last season's Champions League Final was the first time I thought that the lack of fans in the ground really didn't feel right.

[Fromola]

Might rely on us drawing our CL bitches (Porto) again.

Is there absolutely no chance of fans in the ground for the final then?

Last season's Champions League Final was the first time I thought that the lack of fans in the ground really didn't feel right.

Depends on Turkey i'd assume. If it was in England it'd be 10,000 permitted.

[RedSamba]

Hope so!

fuck that

[farawayred]

Maybe the best thing to happen in history will be Everton finishing 4th, us winning the CL and an Arsenal/Spuds Europa League final.

Oh, sweet Mother of Luck, make it happen!

[Ratboy3G]

I'd be more worried about City than Bayern, who don't really look like the same outfit as last year.

It's almost like Bayern are missing their best midfielder 🤔
I'm not worried about either side if we were to face them.

[UntouchableLuis]

It's almost like Bayern are missing their best midfielder 🤔
I'm not worried about either side if we were to face them.

It's hard not to be worried by City when we've been schooled by them twice in the space of a year. The Anfield atmosphere would be a different story but without it I don't see how we would stifle City at the moment - they've ran riot against us.

[Ratboy3G]

It's hard not to be worried by City when we've been schooled by them twice in the space of a year. The Anfield atmosphere would be a different story but without it I don't see how we would stifle City at the moment - they've ran riot against us.

Last season, half our team were still pissed. I'm pretty sure Robbo still had a kebab in his hand.
This season, the game hinged on some huge moments. Let's not forget that 2 huge individual errors happened at key times, City were ruthless enough to put those chances away and are likely to win the league at a canter. If we can face them after Hendo is back and hopefully are able to get a bit of form before then, I certainly wouldn't bet against us.

[AndyMuller]

I can see us getting Real Madrid in the next round and revenge providing the platform for us to batter them which sees us into the Semis and then anything can happen.

[kb2x]

Porto - Best tie possible
Dortmund - Average side minus Haaland and Sancho
Real Madrid - Can be beaten if we set up correctly against them
PSG - A real threat - Mbappe, Neymar, Di maria, Icardi - all would have a field day against our current back 4.
Chelsea/Atletico - Can be beaten if set up correctly.
Man City - Unlikely we would progress. unless City's mental ability not to win the big one strikes again.
Bayern - 50/50 chances of progression

[actwithoutwords]

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/uefa-champions-league/story/4339833/uefa-confident-champions-league-final-can-host-supporters-in-may-sources

Get those vaccine passports together lads.

[Fromola]

Porto - Best tie possible
Dortmund - Average side minus Haaland and Sancho
Real Madrid - Can be beaten if we set up correctly against them
PSG - A real threat - Mbappe, Neymar, Di maria, Icardi - all would have a field day against our current back 4.
Chelsea/Atletico - Can be beaten if set up correctly.
Man City - Unlikely we would progress. unless City's mental ability not to win the big one strikes again.
Bayern - 50/50 chances of progression

Agree with that. It's mainly City (and PSG's front line) who you'd be concerned with.

Any tie will be tough but I wouldn't fear Real Madrid or Dortmund.

The biggest issue - apart from the injuries - is Anfield. If we were guaranteed a big crowd in the quarters and semis at Anfield, i'd be confident of reaching the final. Instead, i'd rather we played our home games in Budapest.

[CalgarianRed]

I'm hoping we avoid PSG/City/Bayern until semis atleast, especially PSG. Kabak and Phillips will be able to handle other teams with help from full backs and Fabinho. They can neutralize the likes of Benzema and Haaland as other players are not that much of a threat. But no chance when you have Mpabbe, Neymar and Di Maria running against our rookie CB's. We barely beat them at home even with VVD and lost away couple of seasons ago. They are just that good individually.

If its semis onwards, we will have Henderson back and he can play alongside Kabak who will have more experience at that point and we have more of a chance. Bayern were able to beat PSG in the final with a high line due to having the likes of Davies, Alaba who are very pacey. Their midfield and defense are not world class.

[Fromola]

Quarter final draw is going to be key. If City draw Bayern or PSG and we get a good tie, then it opens up a bit for us. On the other hand if we draw City or Bayern/PSG we'll be massively up against it to reach the semi final and it'd still be another 3 games from there if we got through.

[RedSamba]

Porto please

[JackWard33]

Order of possible openents in terms of likelihood we go through :

Porto
Dortmund
Real Madrid
PSG
Bayern
Chelsea
City

[farawayred]

I wanna see City-Bayern quarterfinal. And add PSG-Real for good measure.

[El Denzel Pepito]

I don't keep up with many teams except Liverpool anymore, but this is my general thought process.

Bayern - champions last year, Lewandowski - avoid
PSG - Mbappe, Neymar - avoid
Dortmund - Haaland - avoid
Chelsea - PL side, hard to beat under Tuchel, beat us in the league - avoid
Man City - PL side, full focus/desire to finally land a CL, thrashed us in the league - avoid
Real Madrid - can't be arsed with Ramos again, Kroos/Modric/Benzema still a huge threat - avoid
Porto - yes please

My ideal QF draw:

Liverpool vs Porto
Real Madrid vs Dortmund
Man City vs PSG
Bayern vs Chelsea

Fuck knows after that. Really don't want the English sides this time around. As much as I loved us knocking Chelsea out in 05 and again in 07, without fans, I think it'll largely go something like this night instead - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB90JXuiL94

I don't see us winning the competition so maybe I'm being dismissive about our chances but I think it'll take a herculean effort to do it without VVD/Gomez/Matip/Henderson.

[Robinred]

[snip]

I don't see us winning the competition so maybe I'm being dismissive about our chances but I think it'll take a herculean effort to do it without VVD/Gomez/Matip/Henderson.

Agree, though with our pedigree, and the rest of our team’s quality, we can’t be entirely written off.

Utd., despite their far from convincing defence, beat City very recently - City are always capable of a nervous odd performance, particularly when this is their holy grail. They’re worthy favourites, but will now have to beat better teams than Utd.

Most pundits are writing R.M off, and despite their ageing stars, I think that’s premature. Experience is underrated - the more so in this competition. And as I mentioned, we’ve got a few players with experience of winning it too🤭

[Knight]

Porto would be such a dream. Allow the other top teams to knock each other out and hope we can get past Porto. Hopefully by the time the semis role around Henderson is back and our CBs have had another few weeks to get used to each other.

[Lfc19ynwa]

My ideal QF draw:

Liverpool vs Porto
Real Madrid vs Dortmund
Man City vs PSG
Bayern vs Chelsea

I think that would be most people’s preference followed by a semi final between the winners of Liverpool v porto & Real Madrid v Dortmund

With the other semi between the winners of the other ties

[kezzy]

We’ll get Bayern or Chelsea and City will get Burton Albion.  😃

[Fromola]

I think that would be most people’s preference followed by a semi final between the winners of Liverpool v porto & Real Madrid v Dortmund

With the other semi between the winners of the other ties

Realistically, roughly that scenario would be our route to win it. It wouldn't matter who we played in the final, anything can happen in a one off game (last CL final in Istanbul where nobody had gave us a prayer).

Two legs against City/Chelsea/Bayern/PSG with no crowd would be a real tall order, given our injury problems, their quality in attack and the scale of their squads.

Porto/Real/Dortmund are not strong, a player or two aside.

[RedSamba]

Realistically, roughly that scenario would be our route to win it. It wouldn't matter who we played in the final, anything can happen in a one off game (last CL final in Istanbul where nobody had gave us a prayer).

Two legs against City/Chelsea/Bayern/PSG with no crowd would be a real tall order, given our injury problems, their quality in attack and the scale of their squads.

Porto/Real/Dortmund are not strong, a player or two aside.

This is probably the main thing for me. Despite our poor form I back us to win against pretty much anyone if Anfield is rocking. But right now, with no crowd I want the easiest opponent possisble

[Fromola]

This is probably the main thing for me. Despite our poor form I back us to win against pretty much anyone if Anfield is rocking. But right now, with no crowd I want the easiest opponent possisble

If you go back to 2005 there was a far bigger disparity between Liverpool and Chelsea than there is now with us and City or Chelsea (certainly if we got Henderson back and the front three petform as they can) . They finished about 40 points ahead us that year and had already beat us 3 times.

If we had to play that semi final at empty stadiums we wouldn't have had much of a chance. Going into that we always felt if we can take a decent result back to Anfield we'd win it.

[rocco]

Quite fancy taking Madrid on

[vblfc]

We are always best when we have a hill to climb.  You can sense that we are stabilizing progressively after our injury set backs & frustrating slide back down a bit in the league.  The Champions League is a path we know and a great challenge for us just now that gives us that set of clear goals to achieve now the league is gone. 
We have reached our CL "base camp" and can now see ahead of us what we have to do.  We have the chance for a different but achievable tempo and performance and to push on in a mode that we know can be much better than what we have seen recently in the league. 
Hope we draw City and then Bayern on our way to the final Vs PSG.

[AndyMuller]

Madrid or Chelsea will be nice. Can see us beating both over two legs.

[rocco]

Any chance Henderson will be back for this even the second leg

First legs: 6/7 April
Second legs: 13/14 April

[rob1966]

Believe

[CraigDS]

I’d fancy us over two legs vs Madrid, Chelsea, Porto or Dortmund.

City, Bayern and PSG are a different ballgame. The first two just because they've got great squads. The latter as they have a couple of players with pace who could hurt a make shift defence.

[Gaz75]

The real question is, will Virgil go full kit at the final?

[amir87]

Really don't want to play down our chances but I think every attack besides maybe Porto's would cause our defence problems. Hopefully we're in a much more stable and confident state when the next matches happen but no fans in Anfield is a massive disadvantage for a team like ours.

[Jookie]

I’d fancy us over two legs vs Madrid, Chelsea, Porto or Dortmund.

City, Bayern and PSG are a different ballgame. The first two just because they've got great squads. The latter as they have a couple of players with pace who could hurt a make shift defence.

I think we'd go into a QF with Porto as clear favourites.

Madrid, Chelsea or Dortmund I think would be close to 50-50. I'd personally rather avoid Chelsea.

PSG would be slight favourites against us due to their quality and pace upfront.

City or Bayern would go into the tie as clear favourites against us and we'd be doing really well to get through.

None of the above means we can't win the CL. The task is significant though. I think only the most optimistic of us would say we go into the CL QF draw as one of the favourites. The more negative could make the argument that we are 6th or 7th favourites based on current form and circumstances. I think it's arguable we are somewhere between 4th and 7th favourites and therefore one of the teams with an outside chance of winning the competition this year. We've been here before though and get ourselves to more than 1 final despite being on paper one of the weaker teams remaining at this stage.

[El Lobo]

Really don't want to play down our chances but I think every attack besides maybe Porto's would cause our defence problems. Hopefully we're in a much more stable and confident state when the next matches happen but no fans in Anfield is a massive disadvantage for a team like ours.

Yeah thats where I am Annoyingly pessimistic.

I think we can never be written off in this competition, but when we won it under Rafa it was very much backs to the walls, super solid defence sort of thing. I just dont see us adopting that sort of tactic, or even being any good if we did, so it'll probably come down to can we outscore the opposition and its hard to see that working against Bayern with Lewa and their wingers, or Mbappe and Neymar. Abu Dhabi I couldnt give a toss about, we only lost in January because Ali had a complete brainfart of a performance its not like they ripped us to shreds.

[Indomitable_Carp]

I reckon we could take Madrid, but personally I think it would be a massive shame to have our first-Post 2018 Final match against them at an empty Anfield. Don't want Madrid until Sergio Ramos can get an absolute 50,000 strong rollicking.

Wouldn't want City or Bayern at this stage.

So I'd take anyone else really.

[Eeyore]

Heart wants

Liverpool vs Porto
Real Madrid vs Dortmund
Man City vs PSG
Bayern vs Chelsea

Head says

City vs Porto
Real Madrid vs Dortmund
Liverpool vs PSG
Bayern vs Chelsea

[AndyMuller]

When is the draw?

[dutchkop]

Quarter final draw is going to be key. If City draw Bayern or PSG and we get a good tie, then it opens up a bit for us. On the other hand if we draw City or Bayern/PSG we'll be massively up against it to reach the semi final and it'd still be another 3 games from there if we got through.

so basically top half of the draw
Bayern vs PSG
Chelsea vs  City

bottom half Liverpool DVB Porto Real - personally if this was the draw I would not care who we got in QF .

[bornandbRED]

Give us anyone as long as it’s not City/Chelsea... be arsed with that.

I’m predicting:

Lfc - Bayern
Madrid - PSG
Chelsea - Dortmund
Man City - Porto

No doubt the brown bags will have been flying around this week.