James Milner has called on his Liverpool peers to show a stronger mentality after they followed their thrashing against Real Madrid with a goalless affair at Crystal Palace.
The stalemate saw Jurgen Klopp's side squander the chance the crank up the pressure on Tottenham Hotspur, who currently sit fourth in the Premier League table,
Yet despite back-to-back wins against Everton and Crystal Palace in the Premier League earlier this month, the Reds were unable to break the deadlock at Selhurst Park as Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo were denied by the woodwork and Vincente Guaita late in the second half.
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Speaking after the 0-0 draw, though, Milner admitted there has been a collective loss of confidence after events in recent days but has called on his team-mates to bounce back
"I think obviously when things aren’t going your way there’s obviously a loss of confidence," Liverpool's vice-captain told Liverpoolfc.com. "When things are going well in a general period and you have a game where you hit the post and it doesn’t go in or you misplace a pass, it doesn’t affect you as much, you shake it off and go again.
"Obviously at this moment in time with the confidence a bit lower and a few bad experiences, it probably gets us down a bit more than it should do at this moment in time – and that’s something we need to try to fight through.
"It’s hard when you’re not getting the results you want to see the good things in the performances. It’s important that we don’t get too down on not getting the results and things that don’t go our way in games, we have to bounce back and be a bit mentally more strong than that, and also still see the good parts in the games."
The Reds are back in action on Wednesday evening when they host Wolverhampton Wanderers in a rescheduled fixture from earlier in the season. Manchester United then travel to Merseyside on Sunday afternoon and Milner believes it's important for his side to take the positives from the Palace performance ahead of a "big week" and not dwell on the missed opportunity.
"Every week is a big week. We want to finish the season strongly, there’s still so many games left to go. It feels a bit strange because normally at this stage of the season you’re probably a bit further in, but there’s so many games to go," said the 37-year-old. "It’s important when we’re not getting results that we shake ourselves off, don’t get too down and disappointed about it.
"There has been some good performances in there recently. There was a great 40 minutes or first half against Madrid, a couple of sloppy goals but other than that it was a good 45 minutes. You come away second half and all the good things are forgotten about. It’s important that we remember there has been some good signs over the last few weeks.
"This was a gritty away performance, it wasn’t our best performance, it wasn’t the most fluid performance but ultimately we have come to a tricky place, kept a clean sheet, had enough chances to win the game, not our best but we could easily be standing here talking about a gritty 1-0 win and everyone be happy. So it’s important we don’t always just get down on ourselves and we stick together.
"You’ve seen the amount of fans who were here again today and they’re backing us every single game, which is obviously incredible. We know how frustrated they are because we’re frustrated as well, but hopefully they know that we’ll be giving absolutely everything and working as hard as we can to try to get some form going and finish the season strongly."
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