Positive thinker ready for Reds

With PSV Eindhoven struggling to find their early-season form and weakened by injury, Tuesday's UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg against Liverpool FC has hardly come at an opportune moment.

'We are ready'
Yet Jason Culina, the Dutch title-holders' Australian international, remains defiant. "We are looking forward to switching our attention to the Champions League and forgetting about the domestic situation for the moment. We are ready.

Enough in reserve
"It has been a long season," added the left-sided midfielder, whose team are without a win in three league games with two draws sandwiching a 5-1 home loss to AFC Ajax. "But then you expect to play a lot of games if you're a top team. Obviously we have injuries to two important players [defender Alex and striker Arouna Koné] but I think we have enough quality in the squad to cope." Culina himself has only just recovered from abdominal muscle problems and a niggling groin injury which prevented him taking part in Australia's recent friendly against China.

Mr Effective
The 26-year-old's inclusion in the starting lineup against the 2005 UEFA Champions League winners would represent his seventh appearance of this European campaign. Although far from a prolific scorer - his only Eredivisie goal coming against Sparta Rotterdam in February - his pace and workrate make him an effective link between defence and attack for the club he joined from FC Twente last season. Earlier in his career, Culina had had a less productive spell with Ajax, who loaned him to KFC Germinal Beerschot Antwerpen and De Graafschap.

Job to do
Liverpool's 4-1 thrashing of Arsenal FC on Saturday might suggest the Premiership side are better equipped to deal with PSV than were Arsène Wenger's men, who lost 2-1 on aggregate to the Eredivisie leaders in the last round. Yet even the sight of Peter Crouch scoring a hat-trick did not faze the Australian. "Liverpool are a great team and have many good players," he said. "But regardless of who is playing, we'll just have to deal with it. We also have plenty of people capable of doing the job."

Forward thinker
Rafael Benítez's team took four points off Ronald Koeman's in the group stage this term – a 0-0 draw in Eindhoven preceding a 2-0 home win at Anfield – but according to former Sydney United FC prodigy Culina, that has little bearing on the outcome of the impending head-to-head. "We took a few things out of those two games. Now it's different, these are the quarter-finals. We know what we have to do and we fully intend to do it."