InterviewFabinho on Wembley return, the challenge of Man City and knee slides

The Reds’ last trip to the national stadium ended in Carabao Cup glory, with the No.3 playing his part by scoring an incredible penalty in the shootout victory over Chelsea in February.

This weekend’s return to Wembley represents the chance for the club to reach the conclusion of the FA Cup for the first time in a decade.

Read on as Liverpoolfc.com sat down with Fabinho to preview the last-four showdown with Man City…

You had a really enjoyable trip to Wembley last time. How determined are you to go there again and get another big win?

It's really nice to go to Wembley again and play the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Since I'm a Liverpool player, it's the first time I'll play in an FA Cup semi-final. It's special. I know how special this competition is for our fans, for everyone here in England. We're looking forward to this. It will be against Man City again, so it will be a really hard, tough game. Wembley is a special place. We already played there and the support was unbelievable from our fans. Hopefully it won't be different this time and we will have a good result as well.

It looked like the stage, a stadium with almost 90,000 people in, wasn't too big for you either last time with your Panenka-style penalty...

I enjoyed that moment! In my mind I knew the game could go into penalties, so I was ready for this. I was prepared to take the pen like this. So when I was walking to take the ball, I was confident that the ball goes in. I did it and I really enjoyed it. I think the fans as well enjoyed it.

The FA Cup is one trophy you haven't won. Are you sort of desperate to complete the set as a Liverpool player?

As a Liverpool player, you want to win everything. I think the FA Cup is the only trophy this group didn't win yet. Of course it will be really special to win this one as well. I want to win because we are an ambitious team, we are a really strong team, we are Liverpool FC. We will try our best to win the FA Cup.

What will be required to reach the final when you come up against this Man City side?

There'll need to be really good recovery after games because now we just have important games. We can say that we just have finals now, we have to win every game if we want to be alive in the competitions, to try to win more trophies. We have to be really focused on the next game and prepare for it. The group is really focused on it, looking forward to this moment of the season. Everyone is ready to play, ready to help the team. I think we are in a good mood to play these games.

With the quality they have all over the pitch, how much of a challenge is it to play against them in your defensive midfield role?

It's really hard to play against something like this because they know how to keep the ball, they have players who are used to it and they have players who in one action can change the game with a pass or a finish. I try to close all those spaces – of course, it's really hard. Some of the players look like they never lose the ball. It's really hard to play against players like this but, as I said, I will try my best to defend them.

This is your best goalscoring season at Liverpool by some distance. You must be absolutely delighted with that, but is there a particular reason behind it?

I don't know. In the set-pieces I am more inside the box, so this helps a lot. The penalties, of course, help a lot. This is the first season that I am taking penalties here. I always try to be ready for the occasion to shoot a penalty or in a corner or free-kick to be alive inside the box. The ball is just coming to me and I'm just scoring.

It seems you still need to work on your knee slides, though, after celebrating Ibrahima Konate's goal at Benfica...

Yes! I don't know if I can celebrate like this because I never do this when I score. Always I stand up, I never do a slide. But when I saw Ibou running to do a slide with the knee, I said, 'Ah, let's do this as well' because I was happy with the goal, I was happy for him. It didn't work really well. I think for my next celebration I will try to do it again to just show it was an accident and the pitch was a little bit dry and that was the problem!

Despite all your goals this season, you're obviously still far more focused on clean sheets and helping the defence, though...

Of course. My first part of the job is to defend well, try to help the defence and to protect the defence. That's most important for me. I'm always happy when we keep a clean sheet, when we are really consistent on defence, when the other team doesn't have much chance to score. That is my job. As a No.6, that's what I want. But, of course, when I have the opportunity to score or give an assist, I'm always happy as well.