Liverpool’s James Milner showed he is struggling as much as any of us to explain his team’s current slump in form after another Anfield defeat.
Fulham’s Mario Lemina pounced just before half-time to drill a low shot beyond Alisson Becker and into the Liverpool net. It was the only goal of the game, giving Scott Parker’s Cottagers a huge three points in their quest for Premier League survival.
After the game, Milner was asked for his thoughts on where it went wrong for The Reds when speaking to Sky Sports:
“Obviously it wasn’t good enough from the standards we’ve set. We made changes today and we didn’t really start very well, they passed it around very well in the first half and their set-up caused us problems where we couldn’t get too close to them. Second half, we had a lot of the ball and probably had chances to score but didn’t really create as much as we would have liked.”
The veteran midfielder was asked if bad luck was to blame for the Fulham defeat:
“I don’t think it’s just that, obviously it’s a break that you need, a little bit of magic. Shaq had an effort that has gone the wrong side of the post – when things are going well it goes in. One from a corner that’s bouncing around – when things are going well it goes in. At the moment it’s not for us and it’s down to us to dig ourselves out. The only way is working hard and it’s down to us to do that.”
He was also asked how tough it is for Liverpool to cope with the current run of home defeats:
“The mindset has to be like it always is: concentrate on the next game. It definitely hurts. When you’re playing for a club with the history of Liverpool, the history we’ve created as a group of players, the standards we’ve set, we’re not hitting them at this moment in time and it’s not good enough. We know the incredible support we get all around the world and they’re still with us despite our poor performance at this moment in time. It’s disappointing and hard when you’re letting the club down and letting the fans down. It’s for us to keep pushing and dig ourselves out of the mess.”
Liverpool travel to Budapest this week to take on RB Leipzig in the ‘home’ leg of their Champions League last-sixteen clash. The Reds are 2-0 up from the first leg back in February.
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