After beating Sparta Prague in both legs of their quarter-final tie, Villarreal will be facing a much tougher test in Liverpool.
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The Reds are without Mamadou Sakho after his failed drugs test while midfielders Jordan Henderson and Emre Can have had their campaigns prematurely ended by injuries. Without Kolo Toure to call on, Liverpool would be looking thin at the back.
Jaume Costa re-joined the first team in training on Monday.
That the interpreter forgot his bearings and started translating in English when it was meant to be in Spanish reflected the length of Klopp’s answer to the suggestion that Liverpool are favourites to win the competition from here.
“Maybe Liverpool could be considered favourites due to their history as a club”, said Villarreal coach Marcelino. They have a great counter-attack and lots of pressing, so they won’t let us play.
“We’ve watched Villarreal five or six times”, he said in a press conference on Wednesday.
They stumbled at the penultimate hurdle against Valencia in the UEFA Cup in 2003-04 and versus Arsenal in the Champions League in 2005-06, while Porto proved to be too strong in the Europa League in 2010-11.
“They’re a good club in a small city in Spain”.
The German, who feels football’s main job is to entertain the crowd, explained that he likes his team to play possession based football, but is often mistaken as a pressing and counter-pressing enforcer.
“This club has got close several times and couldn’t do it in the end, so we are really excited about playing this semi-final and above all reaching the final”, said midfielder Denis Suarez.
Kick off is at 20.05 on Thursday.
All the vital information is here on Liverpool’s website.
Jürgen Klopps’s side thrived on their underdog status during their thrilling 5-4 aggregate victory over Borussia Dortmund in the quarterfinal earlier this month.
With Villarreal now fourth in La Liga, the trip to El Madrigal looks a daunting one for Jurgen Klopp’s side.
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– This will be the first meeting between Villarreal and Liverpool in Europe. The Tipster is offering new Paddy Power customers enhanced odds of 10/1 on Liverpool to beat Villarreal. He has scored 45% of his teams goals in the Europa League, and, according to WhoScored, only Augsburg’s Raul Bobdilla has scored a high percentage of his teams goals.
