Liverpool boss Matt Beard has said he is "not worried" about the mood within his squad despite a challenging spell in the Women's Super League.
The Reds played their first competitive game in almost a month on Wednesday, losing 2-0 away to title challengers Arsenal. The result marked a second consecutive defeat for Matt Beard's side, who were also narrowly beaten by relegation favourites Leicester in their last outing before the international break.
While Liverpool's need to get back to winning ways could perhaps be hindered by a signifcant injury crisis in the squad - with seven senior players absent from the midweek clash in the capital - Beard is confident is side are still in a good position to retain their top-flight status beyond the end of the season.
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“The squad is together - I think you can see that from our second half performance against Arsenal," he said. "We’ve spoken about (injuries) and how sometimes things like this can happen so we’ve just got to stick together.
"There’s nothing I need to do differently or the players need to do differently. We just need to turn up every day, do what we always do and prepare for every game as best we can.
“Everyone is okay. Everyone is in good spirits. We’re in a better position than the teams below us. I’m not worried and I’ve never been worried.
"In two weeks time, we’ll have a lot of these players back and available and then the competition for places will be there and we’ve also got a run of games where we feel we can pick points up between now and the end of the season.”
Reflecting on the defeat to Arsenal, the Liverpool boss added: "It was a tough game the other night. Watching it back, I feel we did okay in certain moments. On the transition, when we won the ball back we needed to be a lot better than we were.
"We’ve got no-one else back for the weekend, we’ve got the same squad we had against Arsenal but the positive with that is everyone got through okay and those players that were on restricted minutes won’t be on restricted minutes now so it gives me a little bit more flexibility in the starting XI."
Liverpool will return to WSL action on Sunday when they host Tottenham at Prenton Park. Spurs are currently tenth in the table - two points and two places behind Liverpool - having lost their last eight league games, and Beard believes the pressure is on both sides to turn their fortunes around this weekend.
"There’s still plenty of points to play for, we’re not going to put everything on one game," he said. "We know it is a big game because we’re at home.
"Tottenham are on a run of form that I guess they’ll be desperate to put right but when you are in that form sometimes it’s tough to get out of it. All we can do is concentrate on ourselves and how we want to play and hopefully that will be enough for us on the day.
"(Spurs) are under pressure, obviously with the investment they have put into the playing side. There’s still plenty of games to play so at some point their luck will change. Hopefully ours will too. The pressure is on them but it’s on us as well. It’s on both teams so we’re looking forward to the game and we know what we need to do."
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