Adam on City, Hearts and squad
Charlie Adam is itching to get the chance to return to the side against Hearts in the Europa League play-off at Anfield on Thursday night and help the Reds qualify for Friday's group stages draw.
In an exclusive chat with Liverpoolfc.com, the Scotland international looks ahead to helping the Reds try and progress to the Europa League proper and reflects on Raheem Sterling's sparkling display against Manchester City on Sunday.
Charlie, how is the squad feeling in general after their performance against Manchester City?
I think they are disappointed. The disappointment comes from the self belief in the group that we probably did enough to win the game and that just shows we know what we are capable of. I think the game against West Brom was probably a one off and a freak result, but that's the way it goes. I thought against Man City we were nearly back to our best and hopefully we can kick on for the rest of the season now.
Lots of positives to take from that performance against City and so much focus on young Raheem Sterling. What did you make of his performance?
I thought he was terrific, simple as that. He's got a talent and if you can give him the ball and get him running at people, it's a joy to watch. He's learned a lot from when I joined the club as he wasn't in the first-team squad then but the manager has brought him in now. Since the start of pre-season, he has listened and learned off the manager and taken it on board. I thought he gave Kolo Toure a tough game on Sunday and he should be proud of his performance, but the biggest problem when you've got young players like that is everybody jumps on the bandwagon and says he should be doing this and playing for England etc. Let him play 20 to 30 games for Liverpool first and then make the decision on how good he is. He's got a talent and it's a joy to play with him.
You went to Rangers as a young player - a big club with lots of expectation on you - what would your advice to Raheem be?
Listen and learn. Listen from the main people at the club - the manager and the senior players as they are the ones that are going to help him. You do get influences off the pitch but for him the most important thing is he listens to the right people and that's the manager and the players. We've got a good group here who will help him and keep his feet on the ground. He is not the type of boy to go and swan about and things like that. He works hard and he learns a lot. When you are only 17 years of age it's easy to get carried away but he's at the right club and he's got the right people looking after him and that's important.
What about the game at Hearts last week - from a personal point of view how much did you enjoy being back in the first team?
It was good to get 90 minutes and it was second 90 of the season after playing for Scotland. It was only my second 90 minutes for four months as I had the knee injury, but I was delighted to get back involved and it was a tough game for us. It was good for a lot of us to get a game and I thought we controlled it well and maybe could have scored a few more goals. Hearts did a good job but we were delighted to win it 1-0.
You certainly have the advantage going into the second leg although at 1-0 the game could have its difficulties,couldn't it?
It always does as it only takes a freak goal, or a penalty that could change the tie but if we go and play how we know we can at home and start well then we can finish the job off and go into another difficult game on Sunday against Arsenal.
It's a squad game these days and games are coming thick and fast, aren't they?
They certainly are and then there's more internationals after Arsenal. It's going to take 25 players this season to do what we want to do this year and if we do get into the Europa League group stage we will be in four competitions and we will try to win them all. It's going to be a tough ask but we have got a lot of quality and a good squad which is going to help us.