Steven Gerrard has urged his Liverpool team-mates to “roll up your sleeves and fight for the club” as the side attempt to inject some momentum into their Premier League campaign with a morale-boosting victory over Arsenal on Sunday.
The former England captain was encouraged by the team’s display in their League Cup quarter-final win at Bournemouth on Wednesday, only their third victory in 11 games in all competitions and a timely result given last Sunday’s 3-0 loss at Manchester United, but will demand standards are maintained when league duties resume at Anfield.
Brendan Rodgers’s side have won only twice in eight top-flight games and languish in the lower half of the table, 18 points from the summit, prompting Gerrard’s rallying cry in the belief the team can still instigate a revival.
“It’s been tough of late, I can’t deny that,” said the midfielder. “It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster so to get a good win at Bournemouth is a big lift and a lift that is very welcome. We did well as an attacking unit at Old Trafford. The difference was we made mistakes there and got punished by world-class players. At Bournemouth we cut the mistakes out and the first half was a very pleasing performance, probably as close as we’ve come to last season’s standards. But we need to keep going, keep winning.
“We have a tough game at the weekend against Arsenal and then we have a run of fixtures which are a bit more kind to us. If we can get a big result against Arsenal and build on this, we can turn it around. It’s been very hard. I’ve experienced it a few times during my career at Liverpool when it gets tough under certain managers and, from the outside, people are trying to kill you. It’s normal. We’re at a big club, we’ve got to take that responsibility.
“We can’t have players hiding and feeling sorry for ourselves. Everyone knows if we perform back to how we have done of late against Arsenal we’ll get beat. We need men out there and, on Wednesday, I thought we all turned up. That’s why the result came.”
Gerrard has spoken to his club-mates, both collectively and individually, to remind them of their responsibilities in the hope they can recover from elimination from the Champions League and their sloppy opening to the domestic campaign. “But if you’re sitting in that dressing room and you don’t know that the performance levels haven’t been good enough of late, you’re at the wrong place,” he said.
Last season’s home game against Arsenal had summed up all that was good about this team at the time – a blistering start, inspired by Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez, which blew the visitors away early on – with a reshaped line-up now hoping to produce a similar performance.
“We won that game in the first 20 minutes but when you have a strike force of Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez, they are capable of killing teams in 20 minutes,” said Gerrard. “It’s different this year and everyone knows that. I think they provided 60-70% of our goals, those two. You take them out of any team in the world and it’s going to be tough, and it has been. But I think this is where you find out what kind of players you’ve got in the dressing room. It’s time to roll your sleeves up and fight for the club and try to put it right as soon as possible and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
There has been pressure, too, on Rodgers with the team’s major summer purchases having struggled to make a positive impact and spluttering form eroding a reputation forged on last season’s startling success. The manager has had to cope with the added pressures of European football as well as raised expectations but while there is empathy from his senior players, there is also an acceptance that criticism is inevitable.
“It comes with the territory,” added Gerrard. “There was a stage where a couple of my performances were under par and I got a bit of stick. It’s normal. I’ve got to accept it being captain of the club, and he’s got to accept it being the manager of Liverpool. If results don’t go well, questions are going to be asked, criticism is going to fly, you take it on the chin and try to improve things. That’s the only way.
“I know when I don’t play well. Every individual does here. But I think, collectively, it has been tough. It’s been tough to perform because we haven’t played well as a team and so there have been tough days of late. But if we keep fighting, keep performing, roll our sleeves up, keep giving everything we’ve got, I’m sure the good days are not too far away.”
