Kevin De Bruyne: Liverpool have ‘advantage’ over Man City after ‘massive’ news – pundit
Man City’s midweek exploits and the injury to Kevin De Bruyne have given Liverpool an “advantage” going into Saturday’s (16 April) FA Cup semi-final between the two sides.
That is the view of ex-City and England full-back Danny Mills, speaking exclusively to Football Insider ahead of the crunch clash at Wembley.
Pep Guardiola confirmed today (15 April), via club media, that it is unlikely that De Bruyne and Kyle Walker will start the game.
Both picked up injuries during Man City’s gruelling 0-0 draw with Atletico Madrid on Wednesday (13 April) that secured a 1-0 aggregate win and a place in the Champions League semi-finals.
“Of course, Liverpool have an advantage,” Mills told Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.
“Kevin De Bruyne is a massive miss. Kyle Walker, they can probably deal with. [Joao] Cancelo slots across and [Oleksandr] Zinchenko comes in. You’re a touch weaker but they can deal with that.
“The intensity of the game that City had to go through, their recovery from there plays a part.
“But that also put in the players’ mind that they are tough and resilient, they are up against it now.
“They’ll think ‘It’s all against us, the timing, the away leg, travel’. But we’ve just seen a display from City where they dug in, they put up a fight. We’ve not seen that too much from City. We know now they can do it.
“Liverpool have an advantage after midweek and how the games went but also, flip that around. Man City will turn up and think ‘One more game, come on, let’s just dig in like we did the other night’. They will have learnt an awful lot from that.”
In other news, Liverpool are ‘worried’ about Virgil van Dijk after a ‘weird’ development.