Pep Guardiola: Liverpool forward trio "almost unstoppable"

Pep Guardiola has admitted that Manchester City have their work cut out keeping Liverpool's "almost unstoppable" forward trio quiet in their Champions League encounter.

The Citizens take on their domestic rivals in a mouthwatering quarter-final tie, beginning with Wednesday night's first-leg clash at Anfield.

Liverpool remain the only side to have defeated champions-elect City this season in the Premier League, doing so with a 4-3 triumph on January 14.

Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah scored three goals in nine minutes that afternoon, and Guardiola acknowledges just how difficult it will be to return from Merseyside with a positive result.

"It's not just Salah," BBC Sport quotes him as saying. "Mane and Firmino, all three, they are almost unstoppable. They're fantastic.

"We lost a bit of control [in the last meeting]; we were involved in the environment of Anfield. The way Liverpool play is so complicated for us. We know that. They are so quick, they are so good and it is tough.

"But it is the quarter-finals of the Champions League so we cannot expect, at that level, that something is going to be easy."

Salah has 37 goals this season, while Firmino and Mane have added another 38 between them.