Gerrard pleased with playmaker role

04 December 2013 09:47

Steven Gerrard is pleased to be fulfilling his role as Liverpool's creative force.

The captain scored his third Barclays Premier League goal of the season in Sunday's defeat by Hull but has been central to many more goals, especially from set-pieces.

Gerrard told liverpoolfc.com: "If you play around good players, they make good movement and put themselves in good positions.

"My job, and what the manager wants me to do from my position, is to try to create and be a playmaker in there.

"Maybe I'm playing a little bit deeper this year but I can still get into areas where I can hurt the opposition. That's what I'm trying to do.

"We do work on set-pieces. It's a part of my game that I've tried to work on all my career - to put good deliveries into the box.

"I've been putting the ball in really good, inviting areas and the forward players and defenders have been finishing them off.

"The statistics in football, when it comes down to set-pieces, are huge and can be the difference between winning big football matches and where you finish at the end of the season.

"It's important that we keep scoring from set-pieces, but also that we tighten up and become more aggressive and ruthless when we're defending our own goal."

The surprise 3-1 defeat at Hull dropped Liverpool to fourth in the table but manager Brendan Rodgers does not think it has adversely affected their overall position.

Liverpool have an ideal chance to bounce back with successive home matches against Norwich on Wednesday and West Ham on Saturday, games they are expected to win.

Rodgers said: "In the time I've been here we've never lost two (league) games on the spin and that's really down to the positivity of the players and how they can bounce back and recover after a defeat.

"It's that type of league; if you lose a game, you can drop a few places. If you win a couple of games on the spin, it will keep you up there.

"Our idea was to get through to the midway point being in and around the top positions, which we have been until now.

"The league has shown this year, as much as any other time at this level, that it's very unpredictable and the scoreline (at Hull) probably suggested that.

''But you can't dwell on it. You've got to refocus and reset and go again and that's what we will look to do."

Source: PA