Liverpool FC: Amaran Steven Gerard

liverpoolfc.tv

GERRARD: WE FEAR NO-ONE

James Carroll 18 March 2009

Steven Gerrard is relishing Friday's draw for the Champions League quarter-final and insists Liverpool fear none of the teams left in the tournament.

After dumping Real Madrid out of the competition, the Reds will discover their opponents for the last eight when the draw is made in Nyon and Gerrard believes Rafael Benitez's side will be confident of progressing into the semi-finals, regardless of which club they are paired with.

"We're not running scared of anyone," the Anfield skipper told LFC Magazine. "We'll take who we get and believe that we're going to go through.

"If we could hand-pick an opponent then maybe we'd want someone like Villarreal or Porto but at this stage of the competition there are no easy games. It might be a cliché, but it's true.

"Everyone who's got to this stage of the competition has done well. They'll all believe in themselves.

"But we've shown - the players, the manager and the fans - that we're a force to be reckoned with when we pull it all together.

"So we'll sit down on Friday and see who we get and take it from there."

Gerrard scored twice in last week's breathtaking 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid at Anfield and the 28-year-old is at pains to recall a better performance from the Reds since he broke into the first-team.

"I honestly can't remember us playing as well as we did in the first half of the Real Madrid game," he said. "I don't just mean in the Champions League or in Europe - I mean in any competition in all of the time I've been playing for Liverpool.

"I don't think we've controlled a game like that from the very first minute, dictated it and bossed it that way before or for so long.

"Playing like that I don't think there's a team in Europe that could have lived with us."