Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez has demanded a response from his players following his side’s disappointing defeat to Arsenal.
The 2-1 loss at Anfield extended a poor form run of form that has seen Liverpool win just three of their last 15 matches in all competitions.
The loss sees Liverpool sit in seventh place in the Premier League table, five points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa – putting their Champions League hopes for next term in jeopardy.
But Benitez has issued a rallying cry to his players, and is challenged them to respond by picking up a win over Wigan in midweek.
“The main thing now is that we have to show confidence, we have to show character,” Benitez said.
“They play for Liverpool. We have to improve, we have to show character when we have problems and we must keep our confidence high.
“The only way to change things is to keep working hard and in this situation, when you are making mistakes, you have to be strong and try do things properly in the future.”
The Spaniard conceded he was unsure why Sunday’s performance was below-par.
“We cannot be complaining, we cannot be arguing about anything,” he continued. “We must keep going and try to discover why we were so bad in the second half in terms of confidence.
“We must discover why we couldn’t do the same things in the second-half that we did so well in the first period.
“It is difficult to explain what went wrong in the second-half, we were very poor and we have to improve on this.
“We kept giving the ball away against Arsenal, it is something we have to improve on.
“Now we play Wigan on Wednesday here and we know we have to do better.
“We were not bad against Arsenal, we just made a big mistake that changed everything. The only way to change is to stick together.”
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