Cucurella insists Liverpool 'deserve' a guard of honour after winning PL title

Marc Cucurella says Chelsea will happily give Liverpool their guard of honour on Sunday – but their show of respect will cease as soon as the first whistle goes.

While the visitors to Stamford Bridge can now bask in the glory of being champions, the Blues are desperate to bolster their top-five bid under Enzo Maresca.

Cucurella said: 'They won the league. They deserve it. If we need to do it, we do it. This is before the game. Once the game starts, we go for our objectives.

'We will fight with everything and for the three points. Hopefully we can have this as well in the next few years. It's what we are fighting for and what we are trying to do.

'It's a good thing to have it (the guard of honour). I think if they ask me if we do it and we win the game, all of us would do it, easy. We need to do it because they won the league. Then when the game starts, we do our job.'

This game marks 10 years since Steven Gerrard and Co had to give Jose Mourinho's Chelsea their own guard of honour at Stamford Bridge, in May 2015.

The Blues are now a very different club to what they were back then, with an ownership desperate to bring back the good days for supporters, but Cucurella believes they are building towards special times together.

'We train every day for this, for winning every game, for playing these important games, reaching finals, playing for a title,' he said. 'This is our main objective and I think we start to build something important.'

On securing Champions League football, which Chelsea can do as they still have to face their fellow rivals Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in the run-in, Cucurella added: 'We know the Premier League is very tough. No game is easy. We need to fight. If in one game you are not focused enough, you can lose. Now it's in our hands and it's very important for us.'

Cucurella has become a Chelsea fans' favourite after an initially challenging period, with the supporters singing a song about him eating paella and drinking Estrella. However, the 26-year-old Spaniard did admit that lager is not his tipple of choice.

'I don't like Estrella! I don't like beer, I don't like wine. I only like vodka! But I feel very proud because for sure, when I joined here, it was tough.'