Former Chelsea player Joe Cole has backed Liverpool to get a victory over Arsenal at the Emirates this weekend and then ‘go on a little run’ in their remaining games of the campaign.
The Premier League champions have endured a poor title defence and are currently in seventh position – 25 points behind leaders Manchester City – after just four wins in the league since the turn of the year.
Asked for his prediction ahead of Liverpool’s clash with the gunners, Cole told JOE: ‘Liverpool. I’ve watched Arsenal over the last few weeks and I just think they’re so bitty.
‘Liverpool, with those Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals, they’ve got a route to the final now and I think it will engage the players’ minds because they are great players. ‘So I fancy Liverpool to go on a little run now.’
The ex-Liverpool and Chelsea winger is confident the Reds can advance to the final four of Europe’s premier competition this season after their last-16 win over Leipzig.
On whether he believes Liverpool will finish in the top four, Cole replied: ‘I don’t, but I think they will go right to at least the Champions League semi-finals.’
Speaking at his pre-match conference on Thursday, Mikel Arteta insisted Liverpool were still ‘the second best team in every department’ in England despite their struggles.
‘I’m not the one to analyse what has gone wrong for them. I can talk about what they’ve done,’ Arteta told reporters.
‘I’ve seen a lot of games and what they’re still producing and the stats will support that. They are, if not the best, the second best team in every department that we coaches have to analyse.
‘But then this is football, the ball has to be in that net and the final action has to provide a moment to win a football match. ‘And then you have some individuals that dictate the quality of your team. Sometimes you cannot predict those things, so I think it’s a lot of things.
The Spaniard added: ‘Against these types of teams, with the quality that they have, they are going to punish you for every error that you do.
‘Even when you don’t make errors and you do everything perfectly, they are still able to break your lines, to create an individual action and to score a goal. Obviously, it is a team where nothing has to be given to them.
‘I prefer to look at ourselves. What they have done in recent years has been incredible. ‘Obviously the competition that they were facing with Manchester City made both teams better and I think they’ve been pushing each other to a different level, one that we probably haven’t seen in the Premier League.
‘That’s the level that we have to reach to compete with them. This season is so different, in particular they have had a lot of issues internally with big injuries. But they’re still amazing with what they’ve done.’
