Manchester City will travel to Liverpool tomorrow and potentially into a seething cauldron against a Liverpool side seeking to avenge their Capital One Cup final defeat at Wembley on Sunday.
City have not won at Anfield since May 2003 but, following Leicester City’s 2-2 draw at home against West Brom tonight, victory will offer a chance to close the gap to the top to seven points with a game in hand.
Manuel Pellegrini said: “I don’t know how they will react. It’s another competition in which they can do revenge and they are at home.
“We will have a tough game and it will be difficult to win but we will try to win from the first minute.
“If we win at Anfield tomorrow we will be involved in the title race until the end.”
One player who may be targeted by the Anfield crowd could be Raheem Sterling whose acrimonious £49m departure from Liverpool in the summer saw him receive abuse from Liverpool fans when they visited the Etihad in November’s 4-1 defeat and again at Wembley when City were victors after a penalty shoot-out.
Manuel Pellegrini confirmed that Sterling would start at Anfield but denied that the pressure upon his first return to Liverpool would affect him after he missed two easy opportunities to finish the game for City in normal time at Wembley.
He said: “He will receive the same treatment when we arrive at Anfield tomorrow. Big players will always perform under pressure, I have 100% trust in Raheem and he will be an important player during the game.
“The other day he missed a goal that could happen to any player.
“But after that he worked for 95 minutes, he was always concentrating on the game and he was difficult for [Liverpool full back Nathaniel] Clyne in a 1v1 and drew three or four important fouls from him.
“He made a complete game and after that I understand that he can play under pressure without any problems.
“I don’t understand why the Liverpool fans boo him because James Milner was well received here [at the Etihad].”
Yaya Toure is City’s only fresh injury worry prior to the game at Anfield.
“Yaya has a kick in his right foot, we will see how he recovers.” explained Pellegrini who also revealed that his choice of goalkeeper on Wednesday would be ‘easy’ but remained coy over whether or not it would be Joe Hart or Wembley hero Willy Caballero.
If City can remain in contention for the Premier League then they will be in a position to welcome back more of their injured players including two attacking talents in Kevin De Bruyne and Samir Nasri, who have knee and thigh injuries respectively, to bolster the squad for the last two months of the season.
“The medical staff think that De Bruyne and Nasri will both be ready to play after the next international break.” confirmed Pellegrini, who added: “In April and part of May we will see if they work 100% for last 2 months of the season.”
With games running out, Pellegrini was confident that City would come good and be able to take advantage of any slips by front-runners Leicester City, Spurs and Arsenal.
He said: “We have experience of winning the title. We overhauled eight points from United in 2014, and things changed in three minutes against United for Roberto Mancini after they were five or six points behind in 2012.”