Pep Guardiola: Liverpool Fans Can't Scare My Man City Stars

Pep Guardiola says Manchester City's young strike force will not buckle in the Anfield pressure cooker on Wednesday.

Liverpool fans are planning a hostile welcome for the City team bus and have vowed to create a cauldron of noise inside the stadium for the eagerly-awaited Champions League Quarter-Final first leg.

City allowed the intensity of the occasion and atmosphere get to them at Anfield in January when they conceded three goals in a nine-minute spell and crashed to their only Premier League defeat this season.

But even though Sergio Aguero’s injury-enforced absence means Guardiola will field a youthful forward line of Gabriel Jesus, who was 21 yesterday, Leroy Sane, 22, and Former Liverpool Player Raheem Sterling, 23, he insists his team will not be fazed this time – and he will not change his total football approach and be more cautious.

“The atmosphere will be tough but it is tough if you go to Barcelona, Madrid, Munich or Sevilla in the quarter finals,” he said.

“It’s a joy to play here. The Liverpool fanswill put pressure on the players in a goodway. They will show what their history is. They have won it five times, we have had one semi-final. We accept that.

“The big challenge it to try to play the way we play. It depends if you are able to overcome this situation knowing the opponent is one of the toughest in the world.

“If I said we are going to play differently, the players would look at me and say ‘this guy is scary!’. It would be that we don’t trust in ourselves. It would be a big mistake.

”Aguero’s continued absence with a knee injury – he is also a doubt for Saturday’s Manchester derby – is a blow but Guardiola is convinced his youthful trio of raiders, Jesus, Sane and Sterling, can fill the void.

“We are so happy with those three guys,” he added.

“You need experience to be better, you need to live these situations and they are young.

“Gabriel never played in the quarter-finals and it will be the first time he has played at Anfield. Why should I doubt them? I’veseen 32-year-old players more scared than those three.

"It depends on the mentality of the players and they are so good in that respect. We’ve done quite well on many different stages this season.

“We’ll try to learn from our mistakes fromthat game in January but also remember the good things we did.”

While Manchester City were coming to terms with the absence of leading scorer Aguero, Liverpool received a triple injury blow

Central defender Joel Matip is out for the season while midfielders Adam Lallana and Emre Can will be missing tonight.

Meanwhile Everton have granted City permission to train at Goodison Park this morning but Manchester United have refused a request from Liverpool to train at The Cliff, their old training ground, on the morning of next Tuesday’s second leg at the Etihad.

A United spokesman say the Cliff – which is used to train youngsters – is not available on that morning.

Liverpool did not ask to use United’s current training ground at Carrington or at Old Trafford.