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Jamie Carragher: Pride Might See Lyon Do Liverpool A Favour
Carra expects no favours in Champions League but he remains optimistic…
24-Nov-2009 11:14:11 PM
Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher thinks professional pride might spur Olympique Lyonnais to victory at Fiorentina in the Champions League tonight.
The Reds need to beat Debrecen in Hungary tonight and need Lyon to avoid defeat in Italy in order to keep their slim hopes of reaching the knock-out phase of the competition alive.
"Lyon don't need to do us a favour - they need to do themselves the favour of winning the group. I'm sure that's what they'll want to do," Carragher told reporters at the pre-match press conference today.
"They're not playing for Liverpool, they're playing for themselves, like we do. I'm sure in the Champions League they'll want to finish top of a group that includes Liverpool, Fiorentina and Debrecen.
"Sometimes it works out that you get an easier opposition in the next round if you finish top, sometimes it doesn't work that way, but every game you play in you want to win.
"We've always been able to sort the problems out ourselves but it doesn't change anything for us. Hopefully the other game will go our way but we've got to look after ourselves and get the three points.
"We always believe at this club that we can do special things. We've done it with this team and this manager over the last four or five years but doing things like this has been part of the club for a long time now.
"We've left ourselves in a little bit of a hole but hopefully we can get out of it. It's been done before, hopefully we can do it again. We don't know what's going to happen over the next two games.
"And it's not just about the Champions League and getting a win here - it's also about confidence and getting the team playing well again because we've got to look forward to a big game against Everton at the weekend as well.
"We're not on a great run at the moment, so we need to get a result and good performance to get the confidence back."
Carragher does not expect the home crowd in Hungary to be especially helpful when it comes to keeping his team updated about events in Florence.
"I don't think the Debrecen crowd will be telling us the score - they won't be bothered. To be honest, I wouldn't want to know. We just have to win our game," the former England defender added.
"The worst possible scenario is for the other result to go our way and us not to do our job. Hopefully the other game will go for us, but if not we'll move on."
Zack Wilson, Goal.com UK
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