Completing a first domestic double over Chelsea in 19 years has made Liverpool confident they can avenge last season’s Champions League semi-final loss when the English rivals meet for the fifth straight year in the competition.
The Premier League sides are contesting a spot in the last four, with the first leg at Anfield today.
“We’ve got a great record against Chelsea this season and if we play the way we have done against them in the two league matches then we know we can go through,” Jamie Carragher said.
“The fact we did the double against them might give us that extra confidence,” he said.
“I’m sure if they’d beaten us twice we’d have gone into it with a bit more trepidation, but the fact we won twice will give us a bit of a boost,” the defender said.
“This year we didn’t find a solution when we played against them,” Chelsea winger Florent Malouda said. “It is never easy to play against them but something has changed since the two games we played and we have to show it, we have an opportunity.”
The big change has been the arrival of Guus Hiddink. The Dutch manager was hired on an interim basis to rescue the season after Luiz Felipe Scolari was fired.
“When he came he told us to focus on our qualities,” Malouda said. “Our key players are more confident, our game is better and we are more disciplined — and to play against Liverpool this is the main condition.”
Carragher would have preferred a continental opponent for the five-time European champions in the quarter-finals.
“Europe is about playing European teams,” he said. “The Chelsea lads probably felt the same. I suppose we are sick of the sight of each other really, but we both know what kind of games they will be and we all realize it will be tough.”
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