Despite some presence of public sentiment that Liverpool would be well-served to miss out a berth in the Europa League in the 2011-12 season, Jamie Carragher shared his desperation over qualification for that competition on Monday.
Luis Suarez echoed that notion on Tuesday, calling the Europa League a stepping stone toward Champions League glory.
“For me the Europa League is important, the sort of competition you want to play in,” Suarez told LFC.tv. ”A club like Liverpool can only think in one way. If you get into the Champions League, your objective has to be to win that. If you get in the Europa League, of course, your objective has to be to win that. That is what a club like this must aim for. We have to do everything we can to win as many competitions as we can.
“The Europa League is our objective,” he added. “When I came I wanted to help Liverpool get there but when the second half of the season started it looked really difficult.”
Now, though, Liverpool rests in the fifth spot in the table, after collecting the most points in the Premier League since Kenny Dalglish took over as manager, and they are thus poised for Europa qualification.
To secure such, however, the Reds will likely have to beat Spurs at Anfield.
“But we have kept winning games, we have played really well and got some important victories, and we have just been hoping that Tottenham drop points,” Suarez said. “There are still three games left and we have to prepare ourselves really well to make sure we get all the points we can.
“Tottenham at home [on May 15] is going to be a great game,” he added. “That will be the most important game of our season if we want to dream about going to the Europa League.”
Suarez, who has won his fifth Man of the Match award for the Reds since his January transfer with his performance in the 3-0 victory over Birmingham, downplayed such praise.
“It does not matter that I keep getting these man of the match awards,” he told Liverpool TV. ”All that matters is that we keep on winning games and going up the table.”
