Monday, November 24, 2008

Steven Gerrard Absence Was No Excuse For Liverpool FC, Admits Fabio Aurelio

FABIO AURELIO believes Liverpool cannot use the absence of Steven Gerrard as an excuse for their failure to break down Fulham at the weekend.

Rafael Benitez’s side were held to a frustrating home goalless draw by the Londoners.

With Chelsea also drawing at home to Newcastle United, Arsenal losing at Manchester City and Manchester United later earning just a point at Aston Villa, it was a missed opportunity for the Anfield outfit to open a gap at the top of the Premier League table.

Gerrard was ruled out with the groin problem that caused such a furore with the England camp earlier in the week.

But having already shown they could win games without Fernando Torres, Aurelio accepts Liverpool should have had enough to beat Fulham minus their skipper.

“We were playing at Anfield and these are the type of games we should be winning,” said the Brazilian.

“And we can’t use Gerrard missing as an excuse for us not winning. We played more than a month without Torres and we kept on getting the results, so we’ve shown we can do it without certain players.

“Steven is a great player, and is important for us. But we had a lot of good players with quality on the pitch against Fulham. We have a big squad and we need to use that.”

Aurelio added: “We were disappointed after the game and even more so after we saw what the Chelsea result was. It was a good opportunity to move clear at the top, but at least we’re still on the same points as them.

“It’s always difficult when teams come to Anfield just to defend and ideally we need to score early on. We didn’t and then it became more difficult and the anxiety among the players became greater.

“Fulham defended well and defended deep. We were better in the second half because in the first half we didn’t keep the ball and couldn’t control the game.

“It’s always difficult after an international week. The team can’t prepare properly for the game, but we can’t use that as an excuse. The other teams have international players.”

Aurelio’s fellow Brazilian Lucas Leiva, who started in midfield at the expense of a benched Xabi Alonso, believes the onus is now on Liverpool to show Saturday’s performance was a one-off by defeating Marseille in the Champions League on Wednesday.

“We’ve just got to try and forget about this and move on to the Marseille game,” said Lucas. “We know we need to improve for the next game, but at least we are still up there at the top of the table.

“We’ll have to do better on Wednesday, we can’t afford to play like this again.”

Meanwhile, Rafael Benitez praised Fulham, but admitted his team had not shown their normal level of quality in possession.

“Fulham played well, but we were not passing the ball well,” said the Liverpool manager.

“The second half was very difficult for Fulham to score and for us it was a question of timing, the passes from us were not good enough.

“In the second half the team showed character and more energy, but we didn’t have the quality with the ball that we normally show at Anfield.”

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