Vicent Kompany: Beating Man United Tomorrow Could Be Key To Liverpool UCL Comeback

Vincent Kompany says securing the Premier League title tomorrow can help Manchester City pull off a miracle Champions League comeback against Liverpool next week.

The City captain insists no one in Pep Guardiola’s squad believes the quarter-final tie with Liverpool is over despite their stunning 3-0 first-leg defeat at Anfield.

But first City need to pick themselves up and focus on beating neighbours Manchester United in the derby to be crowned champions in front of their own fans at the Etihad.

As UEFA launched disciplinary proceedings against Liverpool for their fans’ pre-game attack on the City team bus, Kompany said: “It would be the best thing to go into the second leg with Liverpool as champions.

“We’ve got plenty of opportunities to do the job in the Premier League and we’ve got only one chance to do it in the Champions League. But we’ll still make the Premier League a priority now for the next three days.

“It’s never been like this. Normally you win the League and go on holiday but this one feels completely different.

“Whatever happens on Saturday we will take the game extremely seriously, we know how important it is for our fans. But after that we will go back to this unfinished business we have got here.

“There’s not one single person at Manchester City who believes the tie is over. Not one person.”

Brazilian striker Gabriel Jesus, who was 21 on the eve of the game, admitted it was his one of his poorest displays since joining City.

“I was very happy because of my birthday, but it lasted until the game began. Now the happiness is gone.

“It is impossible to keep the same feeling after such a bad result. On top of that, it was one of my worst performances. I could not find spaces and not even shoot. It is impossible to be happy with that.”

Despite their failure to manage an effort on target, Kompany is convinced City will create chances in Tuesday’s rematch but must be more clinical.

“We have to live with the consequences of this result but that’s what makes football special. We had a very short period of time in the game where everything went wrong but the same can happen in the next game for the opposition.

“That’s what keeps us believing we can create chances. We can dominate like we dominated the second half. We didn’tconcede anything in the second half but the game plan didn’t change for them. They still tried to catch us out on counter-attacks and we just dealt with it.If 90 minutes of this can happen we will create chances and anything is possible.

“Conceding one goal is not the end of the world in a two-legged tie and we knew that. We should have kept it at thatbut within very little time you find yourself climbing a mountain before you’ve even gone halfway in the tie and that shouldn’t happen.

“But I get a lot of confidence out of how we finished the game. There has to be. We got in the box a lot of times, we just didn’t manage to be as effective or as efficient as we usually are but I’m confident the same mistakes won’t happen in the second game.”

Liverpool will be looking for an early strike to leave City needing to score five but Kompany insists it would still be possible for a team on course to smash the century mark for goals in the Premier League.

“If we need to score five so be it. We’ve prided ourselves all season on being the team that we are.“In the second half we certainly went back to being the team that we are. I’ve been in many games at Anfield where for90 minutes you don’t get out and it wasn’t like that. It was just for a very short period of time we threw a lot away.”