THE prospect of Liverpool away is enough to send a shiver down the spine of the faint-hearted, but my advice is to go there and enjoy the experience.

And I’m talking to players and fans alike when I say that.

I know our fans will be up for it and generate an atmosphere befitting a great stage like Anfield.

I hope the players are up for it, too, because these are surely the games you dream about as a player and if it daunts you then you might as well pack in the game now.

I can’t say I had too much success at Anfield for Stoke, but I always felt it was a fabulous place to play.

It should inspire, not intimidate, and you Stoke fans might just be pleasantly surprised what the day brings because this does not look like a City side that keels over easily.

It’s important you have a strong referee if you’re the visiting team and they don’t come any better than tomorrow’s official, Howard Webb.

I was working with him the other week, but I’m afraid I didn’t dare slip him a bribe because he is a policeman after all.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see both Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres on the bench.
Rafa Benitez always looks at the season-long picture, not just the next game, and these two did play in midweek after coming back from injury lay-offs.

You have to tread particularly carefully with the kind of groin injury Gerrard had, though I must admit it didn’t seem to affect him much on that wonderful strike of his in Marseilles.

City manager Tony Pulis will be hurting badly after conceding poor goals again from set-pieces against Everton because we managers know they are things you can work on, and improve, in training.

But, to be fair to Tony, he hasn’t had much chance to work with his new signings – and you never fully know all their strengths and weaknesses until they become your players.

They will say ‘yeah boss, I can do that at corners’. But you don’t really know if that’s true until you see them in a game situation.

On Everton’s second goal last weekend, you not only saw someone with a free header, but there was far too much space for him to run into as well.

And for Tim Cahill’s winner, it looks like Danny Higginbotham was to blame for losing his man.

But that happens.

What you need is those marking space to attack the space the ball is going into because defenders such as Higginbotham are going to get blocked off from corners and the like.

Hopefully, these things have been sorted in time for tomorrow.

Good luck lads. This is what the Premier League is all about.

Do yourselves and Stoke City proud.