Villarreal need Champions League miracle against comeback kings Liverpool

Two goals ahead after one leg of a cup tie is, coaches routinely warn, a “dangerous” scoreline. Jurgen Klopp has been telling his players and the supporters of Liverpool that rather often in the past two months. They would be forgiven for thinking he says so just for effect.

Liverpool cruised past Inter Milan in the last 16 of a Champions League campaign that is pointing very firmly towards the final after bringing home from Milan a 2-0 lead. They would lose the home leg 1-0 but without ever looking like they had lost control of that tie. They won 3-1 at Benfica in the next round, and, yes, drew 3-3 in the Anfield leg, but for that game Klopp had rested a number of senior players from the starting line-up.

Tuesday’s outing at Villarreal is not an opportunity for wholesale rotations even if Klopp has to be mindful of the freshness and stamina of his key men with the tight race for the Premier League entering its last stretch. But the nature of the 2-0 result Liverpool achieved in the first leg of the semi-final against the Spanish underdogs might tempt fans to think several senior players could be rested without the outcome being jeopardised.

Villarreal managed no shots on target at Anfield. They so seldom pushed back at Liverpool’s stifling high press that even having the ball in the opposition half began to seem like a triumph. “They were better than us in their stadium,” acknowledged Unai Emery, the Villarreal manager “But we defended well to keep their advantage down.”

Emery has asked his team for another show of what he describes as Villarreal’s “recognised” defensive strengths, the stubborn resistance that withstood Juventus and Bayern Munich in previous rounds, supplemented by “finding something we never found at