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"We just have to keep striving and look towards the next game," Brendan Rodgers said, shifting his attentions from Monday’s league loss to West Brom Albion to his club’s mid-week visit to sunny St Petersburg for the first leg of their knock-out round tie against Zenit. “We've got the Europa League game on Thursday night, which is a good opportunity for us to progress in a competition.
"These players always react very well. They were very disappointed, like we all were, because we wanted to make our home form better in the league.
"It's something that left the players disappointed, but they will react in the right manner. They want to work well and they're very good at moving on. That's something we'll have to do if we want to progress.”
Progression of the one step forward, two steps backward variety has defined Liverpool’s slow climb up – and now back down – the league table this season. That Liverpool have on multiple occasions followed up nearly calamitous losses with some encouraging performances certainly supports Rodgers’ belief that his squad will bounce back, but it remains frustrating that the team has been in this position often enough in 2012/13 to warrant commenting on the fact that they “always” pull themselves back up by their boot laces following painful defeats.
If there is an upside to the inconsistency of following mind-numbing losses with more positive results, it’s that Liverpool never play back-to-back Europa League games without a league match in between. If their league form continues to sputter in fits and bursts, in theory their form in Europe can only benefit from this.