Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson has made a bold statement claiming that no team in Europe will want to be drawn against the Reds right now. He claims that Liverpool as a team now commands the respect of other teams and as such no one will be happy facing Champions League holders right now.
“We’re respected in this tournament. The way we’ve done things in the last two years, nobody wants to play against us,” said 25-year-old Robertson.
“That’s the atmosphere we’ve created, a team which has been to the final twice and has lost one and won one.
“Maybe the first season when we went to the final, I don’t think we were really respected until maybe after the quarter-final when we went to Porto and washed them away [winning 5-0 in Portugal].
“We did not get the respect we deserved. Now, we know we are respected in Europe. No-one will want us.”
The draw for the last 16 takes place at Uefa’s headquarters in Nyon Switzerland at 11:00 GMT on Monday.
With the rule being that no two sides of the same nation can be drawn together it means Liverpool will avoid other group winners as well as Chelsea and Tottenham. That means they could face less threatening opponents like Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.
“We’ll wait for the draw and see who we get in the last 16,” added Robertson. “We know it’ll be tough regardless but we look forward to the challenge as we want to go far in this tournament again.
“Last year and the year before we’ve been excellent in the knockout stages and we’ve controlled games but we know that now we’re the champions and everyone wants to beat us.”