First and foremost, being knocked out of the FA Cup in the third round is something that we did not want.

You want to be in all competitions and you want to be strong and show you are able to do it - like Manchester City.

However, it has given us a better chance in the Premier League and the Champions League.

That's because we are not putting as much pressure on our squad.

I underline that I'd have loved us to get to the FA Cup final but going out has probably given us a bit of a better opportunity.

Things can happen in football and it can implode - look what's happened to Tottenham.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp talks with Pep Lijnders during a training session at Melwood

Mauricio Pochettino had a sly dig at Liverpool questioning why pundits say Liverpool have the best squad with Manchester City when Spurs were in all four competitions.

Now though, they've been knocked out of the FA Cup and League Cup in the same week and key players have been hurt, unfortunately for them, so they're going to struggle now.

Use City playing before us as motivation

The Reds have been scheduled to play after their title rivals on all four Premier League weekends during March.

You'd of course rather be playing before City but there will be times before the end of the season that will happen.

It can have a psychological effect of course but it will be up to Klopp and the players to do what they've done all along - look after themselves and continue focusing on the next game in hand and getting three points before moving on to the next opponent.

You just don't know and you can never categorically say that this change in fixtures for City to play first hasn't been done on purpose to put more pressure on Liverpool.

Listen to ECHO reporters discuss TV fixture announcement in latest Blood Red podcast

It's unlikely of course but use it as a motivational weapon - if there's any conspiring going on then we take that and throw it straight back at them.

City can keep on winning but as long as we do the same that can have a psychological effect on them too. It could actually work in our favour to break City if we keep on winning and we can use it as a positive.