Gini Wijnaldum, scorer of Liverpool’s equaliser against Chelsea on Tuesday, is confident we can start doing the business against so-called lesser sides…
Throughout January, we struggled to deal with defensive teams who sat deep and played on the counter-attack, losing to Southampton twice, Swansea and Wolves.
Against the Premier League leaders on Tuesday though, we earned a 1-1 draw, putting in our easily best performance of a miserable January.
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This was almost predictable, considering we haven’t lost to a top six side this term – yet have thrown away points against worse outfits.
“We have to continue the performance we showed,” the 26-year-old told the Echo.
“It was a good thing we did it against Chelsea but we’ve already done it against the big teams. We must now make sure we do it against the small teams. We’ve lost three games to those teams.
“I don’t look at the table now because we can’t control the performances from Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham and what they do. But we can control our own performance and at the end we will see where we will finish.
“It was important to send a message but it is more important that we continue it.
“We showed it against Manchester City (on New Year’s Eve) but then in the next game (at Sunderland) we didn’t. It is important to carry on the way we did otherwise the Chelsea performance was for nothing.”
“This is how we have to play,” he added.
“You can win, you can lose and you can’t always control how things go in the game, but you can control your performance and we did it well.
“It was good. The last time we performed like this was against Manchester City and we did it in the first half against Southampton at home.
“We played with aggression and passion and that is a good thing to go forward but we must ensure we do it in every game.
“If you do it one game and then not in the next it will cost you points. We saw in January that if you are not sharp, if you don’t play how we used to play, it will cost us points.”
Liverpool have 15 games left this season, all in the Premier League. We’re one point off second, but ten off top. So far this campaign, we’ve thrilled when we’ve had the luxury of plenty of days rest/training before a game, and with Sadio Mane back from the AFCON, things are looking up…
When Klopp picks his best team, few sides have matched us this term. But it’s now time to show it.