Here is your Liverpool morning digest for Monday, October 4.
Pep Guardiola makes Liverpool ‘best three’ claim
Pep Guardiola declared Liverpool one of the best three teams in the world as he pinpointed how Jurgen Klopp and the Anfield crowd helped thwart his Manchester City side.
Having dominated the first half, City were forced to come from behind twice after the interval to earn a 2-2 draw in a thrilling Premier League clash on Sunday.
Phil Foden and a deflected Kevin De Bruyne shot ensured the spoils were shared after Sadio Mane and then Mohamed Salah had put the Reds ahead.
The result means both trail early leaders Chelsea going into the second international break of the season.
And while pleased with his team’s performance, Guardiola admits City have only themselves to blame for failing to take advantage of their first-half superiority.
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“We can’t forget which team we were playing,” he said. “For me, Liverpool are one of the best three teams in the world, when you have Mane and Salah and Jota, and Firmino coming in and Van Dijk in defence, and the way they play.
"The last few times we have come here, we have played at a good level.
“When you play the way we played the first half, especially between 15 and 45 minutes, in this stadium was really good and we created chances.
“We did not score because we are not good in departments. We didn’t have a thousand million chances but we had much more than them, but we didn’t take advantage.
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“We knew it half-time and spoke about that. And we knew the second half would be completely different.
“I guess Jurgen put the right energy in his words about the change, Anfield makes its contribution and after 1-0 anything can happen.
"The next five or 10 minutes after we conceded a goal, Anfield pushed a lot - you couldn’t have 90 minutes like the last 30 minutes of the first half were.
“But we were still in the game and we came back not once but twice and that makes me incredibly satisfied.”
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
Luis Suarez training secrets revealed by former starlet
Liverpool’s mantra of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is one of the most fitting in football, writes Theo Squires.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a club legend who boasts a record 857 appearances or 346 goals to their name, a current Red born thousands of miles away in Egypt, Brazil or Japan or a former youth team graduate who moved down the pyramid.
Once you have represented Liverpool Football Club, you are a Red for life.
And former academy star Jordan Lussey knows that better than most, having been welcomed back by his former club in the summer of 2019 when struggling with the harsh realities of non-league football and being out of contract, six years after his own Anfield adventure came to an end.
“I was out of contract at the time. I was preparing to go into a Football League club on trial over the summer but that didn’t come about,” the midfielder recalled in an exclusive interview with the ECHO. “I was in the gym early one morning on the treadmill and bumped into Alex Inglethorpe.
“We got chatting and he invited me into the Academy to just ask how I was doing and get an update on where I was.
“I took up the invitation and went in to see him. I told him where I’d been the last few years in non-league, I’d been hopeful for this opportunity to go in on trial at a Football League club that didn’t happen so I was just keeping fit.
“And he invited me in to train with the Under-23s under Neil Critchley. Originally it was supposed to be just for a week. I went in for the week and did well and gave a good account of myself.
“I tried to pass on the experiences that I’d had to the younger lads and that week turned into three or four months really, maybe even five months.
“It was a case of I could keep going in as long as I needed to. So I made the decision that for me mentally and physically, it was the best decision to stay training with Liverpool with the Under-23s, just for a few months to prepare myself really to get that self-belief and self-confidence back and prove to myself that the ability was still there.
“I am fully confident that if anyone was watching on the side of the pitch, the training sessions that we had, they wouldn’t have been able to point out the lad who had been in non-league for the past three or four years.
"I was training with the likes of Harvey Elliott, Curtis Jones, Nat Phillips, Ryan Kent and Sheyi Ojo on a daily basis for a good few months, I saw that ability I once had was still there.
“I’m really grateful to Alex Inglethorpe for inviting me to do that because I know it doesn’t happen a lot and it helped me massively.”
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
