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Aurelio: Gerrard no excuse

24 Nov 2008 - 11:42:27

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Defender Fabio Aurelio believes Liverpool's failure to overcome Fulham at the weekend cannot be blamed on the absence of Steven Gerrard.

The Reds skipper sat out the goalless draw at Anfield with the same groin injury which forced him to miss last week's England friendly win over Germany.

But Aurelio claims there was more than enough quality on the pitch to have broken the deadlock against the London club.

The Reds missed out on the opportunity to pull two points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table following the disappointing goalless stalemate.

"We were playing at Anfield and these are the type of games we should be winning," Aurelio told the club's official website.

"We can't use Gerrard missing as an excuse for us not winning. We played more than a month without (Fernando) Torres and we kept on getting the results, so we've shown we can do it without certain players.

"Any side in the world would miss a player of Steven's ability and leadership. That is obvious.

"But again we should not use as an excuse the fact that he was not playing against Fulham. It is too easy a thing to say.

"We have won games without Steven before and we have good enough players to come into the side when he is not playing and still be able to win games.

"Steven is a great player and is important for us. But we had a lot of good players with quality on the pitch against Fulham. We have a big squad and we need to use that."