Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Agger Fumes At Pre-Season Defending

Liverpool's Daniel Agger has slammed the club's defence, claiming that their pre-season displays so far have not been good enough.

Liverpool have let in 15 goals in their five warm-up games and leaked another three in the 3-3 draw with Valerenga on Monday night. And with the club struggling to bring in new defenders before the start of the new season, Agger has said that the current crop need to improve.

"On Monday it just wasn't good enough, especially in the first half,'' he said.”The second was OK but it still wasn't what it needs to be. The amount of goals we've conceded is not good enough. We need to show we can keep a clean sheet and must defend better.

"If you are a footballer, you have to be a perfectionist and so far we have to admit it's not been good enough. Kenny [Dalglish] has his way of getting his point across and has said himself that we need to be streetwise - that's what we have got to do."

A strong Liverpool line-up struggled in Norway and goalkeeper Pepe Reina, playing in his first pre-season game, was left fuming at some of the defending.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us - we cannot afford to concede so many goals,'' he said. ''We have some new signings and are still working them into our system but to let in three is not our identity. We must be optimistic but we were far behind United last year and need to improve."

Dutchman Dirk Kuyt, though, thinks that he and the rest of the strikers must shoulder their share of the blame.

He insisted: "We are letting in too many but we have to defend like a team. That starts from the front. I'm not concerned as it's still pre-season and I'm sure if we do that a little bit better, then we'll be ready."

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