Liverpool Football Club News

• Nickname:Reds
• Founded:1892
• Manager:Kenny Dalglish

• Ground:Anfield
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Gerrard upset at poor form

27 Feb 2008 - 17:30:36

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Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has admitted the team's displays this season have been unacceptable.

The Reds are struggling to clinch a top-four finish and are a massive 17 points behind current leaders Arsenal.

They have won only 12 of their 26 Premier League matches to date and crashed out of the FA Cup to Barnsley earlier this month.

Gerrard told the club's official website: "You don't get any prizes in football for finishing in second place, never mind fourth.

"I don't think that the fans would accept fourth as an accomplishment and, for me, it's not nearly good enough. We need to improve dramatically and, even if we do finish fourth, it doesn't mean we've had a good season.

"In the position we find ourselves now, fourth is the least that's acceptable. But we have bigger ambitions than that.

"The only way we can fulfil those ambitions is in the Champions League. And I'm not going to pretend that even winning that trophy - and we're a long way away from it at the moment - will make up for the disappointment of the league campaign.

"I'm pretty gutted every time I look at the table and see the gap between us and Arsenal at the top, and even the gap between us and second and third.

"We believed we had the players to challenge for the title, and we wanted that one more than any other trophy available to us. I still believe we have the squad to be a hell of a lot more.

"I'm getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again. We can't keep talking about next season all the time. There are only so many times you can say it and believe it.

"Sooner or later we have to make one season the season we make it happen and do the talking on the pitch.

"We need to make people believe it. I'm 27 now, I don't want to be talking about 'next season' for Liverpool when I'm 32.

"You make your own luck, shape your own destiny. And now we soon have massive games at Manchester United and Arsenal, knowing we can't win the league.

"We're not bothered about whether we have an impact on the title race we're not in. But winning at both those places would send out a message for next season. That would lay down a marker that no-one would ignore."