Andrew Robertson admits Liverpool have a “huge uphill battle” to defend the title after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester City, which leaves Arne Slot’s team eighth.
The reverse was a fifth in six league matches, with Liverpool eight points behind the leaders, Arsenal, after 11 matches. Robertson said: “Obviously, we’ve given ourselves a huge uphill battle, but I don’t think any of the teams will really look at the league table until we’re halfway through. That’s what we’ve got to do but we’ve got to pick up points on a more consistent basis. Then let’s see where we are after Christmas time or whatever. We’ve just got to focus on ourselves and focus on performance levels.
“I don’t think you can talk about the title this early on in the season, regardless of what position you’re in, but you need to then consistently start winning games again for that to even come into question. It’s definitely not a question that’s getting spoken about in the changing room or anything.
“We just need to get back to the levels that we know we can, the levels that we brought the last two games in particular. If we do that on a more regular basis, then we pick up more points than we won’t.”
Liverpool were trailing 1-0 when Virgil van Dijk’s header was ruled out after Robertson, standing in an offside position, was adjudged to have interfered with play.
Robertson admitted Liverpool “would have probably been fortunate to be on level terms” but said: “We think it’s an OK goal. I can’t really comment on it; I think we’ll let other people do that. But for me, it looks as if I duck out the way – I don’t think the keeper is in any eyeline to me. That’s the rules we got told at the start of the season, so it was a little bit of a difficult one.”
The defeat followed wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid. Robertson said: “We wanted to end a really strong week but it wasn’t meant to be. We were making strides and then obviously getting a knock [at City]”
City’s final goal was scored by Jérémy Doku, who said his breathtaking 20-year curled strike came after Pep Guardiola had addressed his body position in training. When Doku was substituted, the manager had a discussion with him in the technical area. The Belgian was asked what this was about.
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Jérémy Doku said Pep Guardiola had talked to him about his body position when shooting. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
He said: “We were talking during the training session sometimes about when I shoot and how my body position is and we were just talking about that now when I score. So it was a quick joke. It’s difficult to explain: just that I have to put my body above the ball when I shoot the ball so I can put more power, something like that.”
Doku believes there is more to come from him. “I’m 23 years old, I hope this is not my peak level. I hope I can still improve, improve my finishing, improve my movements in the box, improve my decision making, improve on my awareness when I have the ball. This is an unfinished product.”
