Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City will not be ‘underdogs’ against Liverpool.
A six-point gap has opened up between the Premier League’s current leaders and reigning champions ahead of Sunday’s highly-anticipated showdown at Anfield.
Momentum is firmly with Jurgen Klopp’s side, who have found an ability to win games late on and appear highly fancied to extend their lead to nine points.
But while Guardiola has acknowledged the power of Anfield, he refutes suggestions that City will be the lesser side when they take on the Reds.
He said: “I’ve never gone into a game feeling like an outsider or an underdog, thinking I am not going to win.
“I am not going to take the bus to Liverpool thinking I am going to lose the game. That has never happened in my career.
“Always I try to believe that, if we do the special things we plan to do, we will have our chance to win.
“But I do accept that to win these type of games we will have to be at the top level. Definitely.
“We can’t be half and half at Anfield because the way they play demands incredible attention in all the details for the whole 95 minutes.”
City will go in search of only their second victory at Anfield in 38 years this weekend, with their last in the red half of Merseyside back coming in 2003.
While Guardiola concedes that Liverpool’s home is a difficult place to win, on par with Camp Nou and the Bernabeu, he remains undaunted at the prospect of it.
“It is never easy to win against a good team on a big stage,” he added.
“Everyone knows how hard it is to win away at Camp Nou or Madrid or Juventus, and at present Liverpool is probably an even tougher place to go.
“But I also know that last season we had a great chance to win, when we missed a last-minute penalty. So sometimes it can happen.”