Vincent Kompany sends defiant message to Liverpool insisting Manchester City can come back

Vincent Kompany insists that nobody associated with Manchester City has conceded defeat in their Champions League quarter-final tie with Liverpool, despite going down 3-0 at Anfield in Wednesday’s first leg.

City’s hopes of progression to the last four hang by a thread after a breathtaking opening half hour saw Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mané establish a commanding lead.

Liverpool held out for the remainder of the evening and, despite City’s spectacular season to date and formidable home form, Jürgen Klopp’s side will be confident of finishing the job next week at the Etihad.

Only twice has a team overturned a first-leg deficit of three goals or more to progress in the knockout stages of the Champions League - Deportivo La Coruna’s 5-4 aggregate defeat of Milan in 2004 and Barcelona’s remontada against Paris Saint-Germain last year.

History is, therefore, against City but club captain Kompany struck a defiant note while speaking about their chances of progression after the final whistle.

“There’s not one single person at Manchester City who believes this game is over. Not one person,” he insisted. “We have to live with the consequences of this result but that’s what makes football special.

“We had a very short period of time in this game where everything went wrong but the same can happen in the next game for the opposition. That’s what keeps us believing we can create chances. We can dominate like we dominated the second half.

“We didn’t concede anything in the second half but the game plan didn’t change for them,” the City captain added. “They still tried to catch us out on counter attacks and we just dealt with it. If 90 minutes of this can happen we will create chances and anything is possible.”

Yet if the margin of defeat was not bad enough, City’s failure to score an away goal makes them only more vulnerable in the second leg.

Pep Guardiola’s side need to eliminate Liverpool’s three-goal advantage on Tuesday night but cannot leave themselves open to conceding again. If their visitors score just once, City will need five of their own to progress.

“If we need to score five so be it,” Kompany said when this was pointed out to him. “We’ve prided ourselves all season on being the team that we are. The second half we certainly went back to being the team that we are.

“I’ve been in many games at Anfield where for 90 minutes you don’t get out and it wasn’t that today. It was just for a very short period of time we threw a lot away.”

City can at least be thankful that the Anfield leg of the tie is behind them. The old ground lived up to its reputation on Wednesday night and the atmosphere, as well as the hostile reception, partially explained City’s hesitant display.

Kompany, meanwhile, knows a thing or two about the benefits a raucous home crowd can bring.

The 31-year-old wrote a dissertation on the subject while studying for a MBA at a Manchester business school and he believes the Etihad is capable of inspiring him and his team-mates to a remarkable turnaround next Tuesday.

“It’s everything. It’s everything. I’ve seen it happen. Big games, big nights, they have always shown up and this will be one of them,” he said.

“Now we’ve got to do it the hard way and they [the fans] have got a massive role to play. Fair play to Liverpool – their fans, the club, the way they lived up to this event but it’s our time to do it now but I’ve seen it before so I’ve no doubt they can.”