'We must bounce back at Blackburn'
Jordan Henderson lamented a lack of aggression and cutting edge as he reflected on Liverpool's disappointing defeat by Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The vice-captain converted from the penalty spot with 14 minutes remaining to pull a goal back, but the match had already effectively been settled by three quickfire strikes from the hosts.
Liverpool were picked apart by an Arsenal treble, all in the eight minutes leading up to half-time, as Hector Bellerin, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez helped themselves to smartly taken goals.
When Bellerin sent Raheem Sterling crashing to the turf, Henderson steered a penalty beyond the grasp of David Ospina; however, Emre Can was dismissed with a second yellow card shortly after.
Then, in injury time, Olivier Giroud smashed the ball beyond Simon Mignolet to condemn Liverpool to a sobering reversal and leave them nine points behind rivals Arsenal.
Henderson insists the Reds will not give up their pursuit of a top-four finish - and he's pinpointed the FA Cup quarter-final replay against Blackburn Rovers as an ideal chance to make amends.
"To concede three goals in such a short space of time is not good enough," Henderson told Liverpoolfc.com. "Our one-v-one defending needs to be better.
"I'm sure we'll work on that in training. We've just got to be a little bit more aggressive, defensively, and then also in the final third, be more ruthless.
"We knew it was going to be difficult [to finish in the top four], even before we came here, but it makes it even more difficult. That doesn't mean we'll just give up. We've got seven games left now and we need to try to win every one. If we do that, then you never know.
"[Blackburn] is another big game for us straight away. We've got to recover well, learn from this one and move on and try to get a big win on Wednesday."
Arsene Wenger's side flew out of the blocks at the Emirates and they pressed Liverpool into surrendering possession on several occasions throughout the opening exchanges.
Aaron Ramsey appeared to have the goal at his mercy in the fifth minute, only to see his shot saved by Mignolet and the rebound prodded clear by the recovering Kolo Toure.
Arsenal turned the screw, but Liverpool managed to wrestle momentum from the home side, as Henderson and co began to launch attacks of their own.
When Lazar Markovic raced through on goal and overhit a sideways pass to Sterling, their best chance to take the lead had been spurned, allowing Arsenal to strike three times unanswered in the space of eight minutes.
"We didn't start that well and Arsenal started really well," reflected Henderson. "They put us under pressure early on. But then we got through the moments where they had their chances.
"I felt that once we did get through that, we started passing the ball better and getting higher up the pitch and had some really good chances to go ahead.
"In the last 10 or 15 minutes [of the first half] we weren't good enough in our one-v-one defending and as a unit as well. So we need to improve on that. Then we went in at half-time 3-0 down.
"We had to keep going and we had to keep fighting and I think we did that in the second half - we kept going. On a different day we could have had a few more.
"When we're on top, we need to make sure we're more ruthless in the final third and that we finish teams off."