Trent Alexander-Arnold believes Liverpool “created enough chances” to defeat Leeds on Saturday night despite losing 2-1.
Jesse Marsch’s side inflicted the Reds’ first home defeat in 18 months when goals from Rodrigo and Crysencio Summerville on either side of a Mo Salah effort lifted them out of the Premier League relegation zone.
The FA Cup holders now have two league games left before the campaign is interrupted by the World Cup in Qatar and the defender has suggested the break could benefit his team.
“It’s hard to accept,” the England international told Liverpoolfc.com. “You never want to lose at home, something we take pride in. For us, we want to win as many games as we can. It is a disappointing result. We create enough chances to go and win that game, but in football you get punished for not taking your chances. We have been punished.
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“It’s just one of those things,” the No. 66 added. “I think we’re not in the best shape. I think a lot of players would say that about themselves and as a team in general. But we keep creating our chances, we keep creating opportunities to score goals and win games. But we just haven’t been able to take them, especially [in the] last two Premier League games.
“I think it’s important for us to regroup, assess what’s wrong. I think right now, it’s kind of like, ‘Get as many points as you can now on this break.’ And potentially, this break will come at a decent time so that we can restart and get our heads together going into the second half of the season.”
Despite Liverpool currently sitting ninth in the table and eight points behind fourth-placed Newcastle, Alexander-Arnold insists the players remain convinced of what they can achieve this season.
The 24-year-old admitted ‘something is not right’ at the club but is already looking forward to next weekend’s big clash with Spurs in the capital.
“I would say we all believe in ourselves, we believe in the way we play, we believe in the team and what we can achieve. But I think when you have setbacks, it can potentially make you doubt yourself and question things.
“Clearly as a team something is not going well, it is not going as well as we want. That’s something everyone needs to think about, it’s something everyone needs to address and make sure we get it right, especially next week against Spurs, the top four rivals. We need to go there and pick up some points if we have any chance of reaching our goals and aspirations for the season.”
If we lose to Antonio Conte’s team they can almost certainly rule us out of the title race and at the moment it looks like finishing in the top four is the best we can hope for.
The Scouser is right to point out that something is not quite right at the moment.
Many of our stars are underperforming and there seems to be very little trust among the group.
From being this close to completing a glorious quadruple last quarter to finding ourselves in our current state is a huge concern.
We have to start acting as soon as possible to make sure that this season is not a failure.
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