I didn´t watch after 3-1! – Heskey misses incredible Liverpool comeback

Former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey admitted he turned off the television and missed the stirring Europa League fightback against Borussia Dortmund.

Level at 1-1 from the quarter-final first leg, Liverpool found themselves 2-0 down inside 10 minutes at Anfield, and then 3-1 behind with a little over half an hour remaining.

Needing three unanswered goals to progress to the last four, Philippe Coutinho’s strike and headers by Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren capped a remarkable turnaround as Jurgen Klopp celebrated a famous victory over his old side.

But Heskey, who played for four years at Anfield, winning the tournament in its former guise as the UEFA Cup in the process, missed out on a dramatic evening after turning off.

“I actually didn’t watch after 3-1, I thought ‘I can’t watch this anymore!’,” he told Omnisport.

“Then I saw the score at the end and was like ‘Wow, I missed an amazing game!’

“It was a wonderful comeback, when you’re 1-0 down after four, five minutes it’s not going to be easy but mentally it does something to you as well.

“But to be able to change that around and come back from 3-1 down is amazing.

“Listening to the players and what they’ve said about the manager, about creating history, it puts a certain mindset on you and gets you going.

“He [Klopp] has managed to tap into the players that way and it seems to be working.”

Liverpool’s reward is a meeting with Villarreal in the semi-finals, but Heskey says picking a favourite from the final four – with double defending champions Sevilla taking on Shakhtar Donetsk in the other tie – is almost impossible.

“It’s too difficult to tell,” he said. “Because the Spanish teams are very strong. Sevilla are still in there as well, they’re very strong and technically gifted but it’s difficult to say right now.

“You could argue they [Liverpool] are favourites but what Sevilla have done over the last few seasons in this trophy you’d probably say they are, really.”