Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard's return from injury briefly deflected the spotlight away from striker Andy Carroll but manager Kenny Dalglish knows it is bound to return.
The club's £35million record signing has yet to score in five Barclays Premier League appearances - three of which have been starts - with his only goal so far coming against League One Exeter in the Carling Cup.
Carroll was left on the bench in midweek for the fourth-round tie at Brighton and with Craig Bellamy, Luis Suarez and Dirk Kuyt combining well together it only prompted more questions about how the England international fits in to Liverpool's pass-and-move approach.
In fairness to Carroll he was one of the nine men who had to play the full 90 minutes in the 4-0 runaround Tottenham gave them at last weekend and probably warranted a rest.
And Dalglish put little significance by his decision to rest his record signing, although he now has a selection dilemma for Saturday's visit of Wolves.
"Andy is a professional footballer who understands what goes on in football," said the Reds boss.
"He worked really hard at Tottenham. It was a bad performance and a bad day for us.
"We don't have a team, we have a squad. There will be times when someone will play and others won't.
"Sometimes you'll be lucky and sometimes you'll be unlucky.
"But the football club is more important than one individual - including myself.
"I'm sure the players realize that. Although there will be a disappointment if you aren't playing, I think there's an understanding as well."
Dalglish added no-one should be surprised a side with seven changes - particularly the trio of Suarez, Bellamy and Kuyt - should play so well at Brighton.
"They train together every day and they get that understanding there. They then look to transfer it into the match," he said.
"We have a look at them every day and work out who does well together.
"If you get intelligent footballers playing together you have a good chance of getting a good performance from them and certainly we got that."
Dalglish believes it is important to learn from the Tottenham performance but not dwell on it as they face a Wolves side who have also lost their last two matches and won at Anfield last season during the final miserable throes of Roy Hodgson's short-lived reign.
"We know it was not acceptable (at Tottenham) but the good thing is that the players realize it is not acceptable," he said.
"We don't get carried away with the victories we have and we won't get suicidal over the defeats we have either.
"At the same time we have to address the problems, if we have them, and we will do. We'll do it properly and professionally.
"We'll try and get ourselves back up and running on Saturday.
"I think Mick McCarthy will be a bit disappointed at the moment as they've lost two league games back to back, like us, after a very good start.
"They came here last year and played very well and went away with a 1-0 victory.
"I think he'll be encouraged by that and he'll be looking for more of the same from his players.
"He'll look to repeat what he did here at Anfield with regards to how he sets his team up."
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