‘Not daft enough’ – Henderson makes ‘blunt’ Liverpool admission ahead of Rangers clash

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Jordan Henderson has acknowledged that the fans’ levels of confidence in the team will have understandably dropped in recent weeks in response to a host of poor performances before and after the international break.

The Merseysiders will follow Saturday’s 3-3 draw suffered against Brighton & Hove Albion with another Champions League group stage tie, this time against Scottish outfit Rangers.

“After a really difficult opening game away to Napoli, we responded well to that setback in Italy with a hard-fought – but deserved – victory against Ajax in our last Champions League fixture,” the skipper wrote in his column for the matchday programme, as reported the club’s official website.

“The performance we produced that night was not perfect by any means, but we did show the kind of character, effort, spirit and determination that will be needed again tonight. 

“To be blunt, anything else is unlikely to be enough. We have to want it as much as Rangers do and probably a bit more on top.

“I’m not daft enough to think you will be coming through the turnstiles this evening feeling as confident about the team as you have done over the last few seasons. 

“Our form hasn’t been good enough for this to be the case and it is up to us to turn that around so that the faith that you have in us can be restored. After Saturday’s draw against Brighton, the gaffer said that this is a period that we will have to fight our way through and that is spot on.”

It’s fair to note that there were some positives to take from the meeting with the Seagulls at the weekend as immense character was shown to mount a comeback and put the club in a position to take all three points after a desperate start to the game.

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Liverpool now find themselves 11 points away from the top of the table (with a game in hand)

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The long and short of it remains that we simply can’t keep being so easy to play through in the middle of the park and down the right-hand side of our backline.

Roberto De Zerbi’s men deserve a great deal of credit for their ambition shown at Anfield but the kind of gaps we showed the visitors at L4 must be closed as soon as possible unless we wish to risk further embarrassment in upcoming key fixtures with Manchester City and Arsenal.

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