KD: We'll rise to festive challenge
Kenny Dalglish insists Liverpool are ready to tackle the busy schedule awaiting them over the Christmas and New Year period.
Following Sunday's clash at Aston Villa, the Reds will take on Wigan on Wednesday night before playing host to Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day.
Newcastle United then travel to Anfield on December 30, before Liverpool's first test in 2012 is against Manchester City on January 3, with the FA Cup third round tie against Oldham scheduled to take place just three days later.
But while Dalglish acknowledges the programme is a demanding one, he maintains his side will stick to their tried and tested mantra of taking each game as it comes.
"Obviously you take into account the fixtures you've got coming up and how many days you've got in between," he said. "There is a great deal of thought that goes into the process.
"After the first game, you take into account how your players are before you move into the second game - but you do that before every match.
"The games do come thick and fast now and we've just got to deal with it, but you do take into consideration the workload. Everything is monitored anyway, so you've got a good idea of how the players are."
Dalglish added: "We'll get the first game done, and then we'll worry about the one after it. We know what fixtures we've got coming up, but there is not a great of thought that goes into the one beyond the Aston Villa game.
"The greatest influence on the team against Aston Villa will be who we're playing against - not the game that's coming after that at Wigan. First thing's first."
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The Reds head into Sunday's contest at Villa Park hoping to build on an away record that has seen them take 12 points from a possible 21 so far.
Dalglish acknowledges that the Villans will pose a real threat to his team's chances of closing the gap on the top four and is hopeful the encounter will see Liverpool hit the goal trail.
He said: "We're not going to sit and identify their dangers or weaknesses because we're not going to sting ourselves.
"Any information we've got we'll keep to ourselves. That's the way we've operated and that's the way we'll continue to go.
"They (Villa) got a fantastic result at Bolton at the weekend. It's been difficult for Alex (McLeish) moving from Birmingham to Villa, obviously. But he seems to have got them going a little bit, just at a bad time for us. We aren't doing bad either, so we'll be respectful and look forward to a difficult game.
"Our away form has been really impressive. We got beaten the last time away from home (Fulham) but the performance was good enough to have won it. We'll just keep going like we have done before.
"I think the only stat that isn't in our favour is probably in the goals for column. We've got fewer points than the performances deserve. We've got that in our own hands and we'll just continue to do what we've done and sooner or later we'll turn our chances into goals."
He added: "We've not come up against a goalkeeper who hasn't been outstanding against us. I think 16 times against the woodwork makes a contribution as well. At the same time the responsibility is on us to create chances and then finish them off.
"We'll probably win a game scoring every chance that we make, so we'll look forward to that."