According to Brendan Rodgers, Liverpool suffered from a ‘slow start’ against Manchester United on Sunday, after seeing his side go down 2-1 at home to the team occupying the final Champions League spot.
While it doesn’t necessarily rule out top-tier European football for Liverpool next season, it does make it much more difficult to attain, with a five point gap now having opened up between the Reds and Sunday’s opponents.
But while Liverpool were poor in the first half, and weren’t helped by Steven Gerrard’s sending off, Rodgers was quick to defend his captain. Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, he said: “Steven, in the changing room, apologised to the players and to myself,”
“It was probably frustration there from Steven, he’s an honest guy, very competitive and probably frustrated at the first half watching us because we never put a tackle in, we never made a challenge.
“He’s come on and unfortunately got sent off. The players adjusted well, Steven has said his apology and we move on.
“He’s a guy that knows as well as anyone that it is difficult to play in the big games with 10 men but he’s a wonderful character and he’ll be as disappointed as anyone.”
Rather than point the finger at Gerrard, Rodgers instead preferred to see the first half display as the biggest issue; something which made the team’s life much more difficult, after trailing 1-nil at half time and then having to claw themselves back into the match with 10 men after barely a minute of the second half gone.
Rodgers continued: “I was disappointed with the first half.
“I think after everything that we’d spoken about with our pressing and our aggression, our start position was way too deep.
“In fairness we never laid a glove on them which is unlike us in the first half. Obviously if you give good players the time and the room.
“I thought they were excellent, good positioning, good possession and I thought they deserved their lead.”
But despite losing a player and a poor first half, Rodgers was very quick to praise his players’ reaction to getting back to 2-1 and putting up a real fight that, with a bit more luck, may have gained the team at least a point.
He continued: “Second half the players showed incredible bravery, the run that they’ve been on the last few months, they showed that character and especially when it went to 2-0, kept the game alive right to the very end.
“When you go 2-0 down and you’ve got ten men then we’ve seen it before, it can end up a lot more. The players were absolutely magnificent second half and there is overriding disappointment, of course with the result, but in particular first half.”
