James Milner Expects Man City to “React like Champions”

Liverpool’s vice-captain isn’t counting on a City collapse after they were knocked out of Europe.

Manchester City are out of the Champions League today, and in just about the most painful way possible at that: on away goals and with the video assistant overruling a stoppage time goal that would have put them through.

The question now is how they respond, with Liverpool fans desperately hoping their mental fortitude will have taken a major blow on Wednesday evening and that their league form will now suffer. James Milner, though, says not to expect that.

“They’re Premier League champions for a reason,” Milner noted. “I’m sure they’ll react like champions and go again at the weekend, but Spurs will have their backs up as well after a great result getting through.”

Tottenham will be feeling confident after advancing past, but they’re also a very thin squad and are down to roughly zero fit midfielders for their league rematch against the defending champions, and that seems less than ideal.

City, on the other hand, have arguably the deepest and most talented side the Premier League has ever seen—but their dreams of a quadruple are in tatters and, mentally, they might be even more drained than Spurs.

Plus after Tottenham, City face local rivals United on Wednesday and then Burnley. It’s a tough, tough run even setting aside what happened on Wednesday. In the end, though, Milner says that—and City generally—isn’t the focus.

“We can keep one eye on it but all we can do is concentrate on our games,” the vice-captain added. “We can control what our results are. That’s what we have to do and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com