Champions League final: Victory for Liverpool could springboard us to Premier League title, say Gini Wijnaldum

The Dutchman is adamant the Reds will improve year on year

Georginio Wijnaldum believes that victory for Liverpool in Saturday's Champions League final could act as a platform to challenge Premier League champions Manchester City next season, though warns there are no guarantees of success in football.

Liverpool hope to beat Real Madrid at Kiev's NSC Olympiskiy and lift the European Cup for the sixth time in the club's history this weekend, having progressed all the way through the competition from the play-off round.

Jurgen Klopp's side memorably defeated Pep Guardiola's City 5-1 on aggregate in last month's quarter-finals, but finished 25 points behind the champions in the end-of-season Premier League table.

Wijnaldum believes Liverpool's target next season should be to challenge City domestically as well as bettering them in Europe, and he believes success on Saturday could give them much-needed momentum into the new campaign.

When asked whether there is pressure on Liverpool to seize this opportunity of a memorable triumph, Wijnaldum said: “I don't feel we play with that pressure. We're just building something and we just hope we get better every year.

“We know how difficult it is to win the Premier League or the FA Cup because you have so many good teams. Take Manchester City as an example, they only lost two games this season and I don't know how many they drew? Four?

“So only in six games you can drop points. That's unbelievable. If you want to compete with them, you have to win almost all of your games. That's really hard. We just want to work to that level to compete with teams that do this.

“I think really important for us as players [to win the Champions League], for the club, supporters, I think for everyone. We worked really hard to get here during the years so it's always good if you receive something when you've worked hard.”

Wijnaldum agreed that victory over Madrid would give a platform for further success, but insisted Liverpool's work would not end with any potential victory in the final on Saturday.

“Of course, but it's not a guarantee if you win this,” he said. “You will be rewarded for the hard work you did before.

“I think it's more like that than to say: 'Oh, we won the Champions League, now we can win [the Premier League]'. It's easy to say.”