The message from Brendan Rodgers as the title race enters its final week is clear: \u201cTake it to the line\u201d.<\/p>\n
For all the \u00adpermutations, if Liverpool win at Palace tonight then they will do just that.<\/p>\n
And that has been the sole focus for the Reds in the past seven days.<\/p>\n
Not Manchester City, and not a stomach-churning, bum-clenching hope that Everton would do them a favour at Goodison Park.<\/p>\n
No. Rodgers has stressed victory at Selhurst Park is the only way Liverpool can exert some pressure on their rivals.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe message to the players is \u2018take it to the final day\u2019. We have seen so many things happen on the last day before. That\u2019s where we want the season to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is we\u2019ve still got to do our job and win. City beating Everton won\u2019t deflate us because we\u2019d have to win against Palace no matter what.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we would have to win there and win against Newcastle. That won\u2019t change and that will be our focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just believe that if we can win our two games then it could go a long way to deciding whether we finish at the top or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is about \u00adconcentrating on our game, which we have done all season, and that is Crystal Palace.\u201d By winning at Palace and going back to the top, Rodgers is \u00adconfident it will ask questions of the men from the Etihad, who will have played three games in eight games after next Sunday\u2019s finale. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough ask for City,\u201d Rodgers added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this stage of the season to play three games that really matter in such a short space of time is a tough ask. Everton was a tough game, and then their other two games \u2013 Aston Villa, an incredible team on the counter attack and better away from home, and West Ham who on their day can provide a real difficult \u00adopponent.<\/p>\n
\u201cManchester City need to win all their games which means they will have won five games in a row and they have only done that once this season. It\u2019s certainly not over by a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodgers was relaxed as he looked forward to the week that will decide \u00adLiverpool\u2019s destiny, joking there was no point in pretending he wouldn\u2019t be watching Saturday\u2019s crucial Everton-City game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not one of those managers who\u2019ll claim he\u2019s on the golf course, because I love watching football,\u201d he said. And he said that for all the heartache that defeat by Chelsea delivered eight days ago, Liverpool are ready for this last push.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cChampions get on their bike and they go again and that is \u00adsomething I hope I have installed into this team. We have recovered mentally and pressed the default button, ready to go again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen it in training. They are going again, very quickly, and when we come up against that game plan again we\u2019ll come up with better solutions to break through. It\u2019s proved useful for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The message from Brendan Rodgers as the title race enters its final week is clear: \u201cTake it to the line\u201d. For all the \u00adpermutations, if Liverpool win at Palace tonight then they will do just that. And that has been the sole focus for the Reds in the past seven days. Not Manchester City, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3927,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions\/3927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}