Sergio Aguero is planning to keep up his brilliant strike rate in home games against Liverpool after tagging Thursday’s showdown a “huge game”.
The Manchester City record goalscorer has scored in all six games he has played against the Scousers at the Etihad Stadium, including last season’s 5-0 win.
That is balanced out by the fact that he has never scored at Anfield – two statistics which reveal City’s differing fortunes home and away against the current league leaders.
Aguero will notch his 250th career goal if he keeps that home run going in the clash of the top two on Thursday, but he pays little heed to such things.
“I'm not the type of guy who keeps a tally of that kind of thing,” he said.
“Of course, I want to score as much as I can to help the team win, and if that's the way it panned out against Liverpool so far, then I hope I can keep the streak going at the Etihad in this meeting - and dispel it when we next face them at Anfield.
“Football always gives a chance to even the score.”
City need to win to slash Liverpool’s lead at the top to four points and re-ignite a title race that was slipping away from them before they won at Southampton on Sunday.
Aguero said he is not at all surprised by the pace being set by Jurgen Klopp’s team.
“This season has shown, once more, that the Premier League is among the most competitive leagues in the world,” he said.
“Liverpool's growth as a team can be tracked from a few years back. Their showing in the Champions League was a testament of that, and they are performing very well this Premier League season.
“But our focus should be on our own game. We are confident in our playing style and we believe it's the most effective to lead us to victory.
“This is football after all though, and anything can happen, but we will play as we always play as it has served us so well.
“There’s no denying it is a huge game for both clubs. Direct clashes between leading teams have a major impact towards the end of the season.
“December didn't pan out the way we wanted it to and now we've got more ground to make up so yes, that makes the game even more important.
“But we are only in January and there are still plenty of Premier League games ahead of us and from the looks of it, there are three or four teams angling to win the title. It's going to come down to the wire.
“Of course, we knew repeating last year's success wouldn't be a simple task but we always aim for excellence.”
