Liverpool

Daniel Agger: 'No European football is an advantage'

By Joe Fish, Reporter | 14 October 2013

Daniel Agger hints that Liverpool's absence from European competition this season may help them secure a return to the Champions League for next campaign.

Daniel Agger has hinted that Liverpool's lack of European football this season may help them to secure a return to the Champions League.

The Reds have enjoyed a promising start to the campaign, picking up 16 points from their opening seven games, and have been tipped to qualify for Europe's premier competition for the first time since 2009.

They face stiff competition for a top-four finish, but all of their rivals have to balance Premier League football with continental commitments, something that Agger feels may play into Liverpool's hands.

"We would like to play in Europe, that is the most attractive, particularly the Champions League," Agger told Danish paper Politiken.

"But, of course, fewer matches lets us recover better and we get more focused on the [Premier League] matches and that might be an advantage.

"We set a goal before every match and that is to win. It's almost impossible to win [every time], but we enter the pitch determined to win."

Agger, 28, has represented Liverpool in European competition 40 times and was in the Reds team that lost the 2007 Champions League final to AC Milan.