Steve McManaman: ‘Liverpool should take Europa League seriously, try to win it’

Liverpool travel to the south-west of France to kick-start their Europa League campaign by taking on Bordeaux on Thursday night as the Reds aim to put their 3-1 loss to arch rivals Manchester United at the weekend behind them.

McManaman has criticised the view that the Europa League causes more hassle than it’s worth due to the extra games and, at times, lengthy travelling.

There is also some speculation that Alberto Moreno could be in line to start at left back ahead of Joe Gomez, who has looked shaky defensively the past few games and capped things off with a terribly timed challenge that gave Manchester United a penalty and their third goal on Saturday.

The former Reds’ midfielder says Brendan Rodgers’ side – who take on Bordeaux away from home on Thursday – have to embrace the competition because the winners qualify for next season’s lucrative Champions League. This is a trophy Liverpool should be looking to win. The versatile defender returned to Liverpool better for the experience and went on to play 141 games for the Reds. “They have spent a lot of money on their squad recently so that means realistically there is probably only one other place”, he was quoted as saying by the Daily Record.

Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool have come under loads of criticism for varied reasons lately and the performances on the field haven’t helped them one bit, have they? What he’ll nearly certainly be on about though is the availability of striker Diego Rolan who could make his first start this season after returning from injury.

“It’s up to those who play against Bordeaux to step up to the mark and get the team back to winning ways”.

“There’s nothing for Liverpool to fear in this group”, McManaman said. However, much has changed since then and in the spring Bordeaux moved into a new 42,000-seat stadium that will host games at Euro 2016.

Meanwhile, Bordeaux coach Willy Sagnol will be without Cheick Diabate after the forward suffered a muscle injury in his right leg in training before Bordeaux’s Europa League play-off with Kairat. Obviously, you’ve got PSG and Lyon in the Champions League but the French league isn’t as strong as it once was.

– Basel failed to qualify for the Champions League group stage so the Swiss champions can instead focus on trying to reach the final of the Europa League, which will be played in their own stadium, St Jakob-Park.

The match will be shown live on BT Sport Europe from 6pm onwards.