Premier League title chasers Liverpool face Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich in next week’s Champions League clash at Anfield.
Sami Hyypia has backed Liverpool to cause plenty of problems for Bayern Munich ahead of next Tuesday’s crunch Champions League clash, speaking to the Liverpool Echo.
The Bundesliga champions will travel to Anfield next week for the first leg with a place in the quarter-finals up for grabs. But Bayern find themselves in unusual territory, given that they are not runaway favourites to reach the next round.
While Liverpool have been in fine form this season, battling Manchester City for the Premier League title, Bayern have looked a shadow of the side that have dominated the German football landscape in recent seasons with Arjen Robben, Mats Hummels, Manuel Neuer and Jerome Boateng looking well past their best.
And Hyypia, a former captain of Liverpool and coach of Bayer Leverkusen, believes Jurgen Klopp’s side are perfectly set up to take advantage of Bayern’s weaknesses.
“We need to be very sharp from the off in the first game. Ideally, you want a lead to take over to Munich,” said the former Finland international.
“I know Bayern quite well and I think their weakness is in defending counter-attacks. We aren’t that bad at counter-attacks and I can see us scoring a few goals against Bayern in that manner over the two legs.”
Unfortunately for Liverpool, their talisman and first-choice centre-back Virgil van Dijk will miss the first leg through suspension and Bayern still have one of the most prolific strikers in European football, Robert Lewandowski, who will be hoping to take advantage.
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