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Although the route to the win on the weekend against Swansea left a lot to be desired, Liverpool's capture of all three points against the Swans kept them in an ideal place in the table: closer to first place than to fifth place. With teams stacked so closely at the top end of the standings, wins like Sunday's give Liverpool a bit of breathing room against their competitors, but only until the next match day.
"We are in a good position at the moment but with 11 games to go there are still a lot of things that can happen," Simon Mignolet said in an interview with the Liverpool Echo. "We just need to try to get as much as we can out of all the games we have left.
"We need to stay calm and just focus on our next game at Southampton. That’s going to be a very difficult game for us and we need to prepare well. We won’t be thinking about what’s happened against them in the past. We did our job against Swansea by getting the three points and winning at home like we have done so many times this season gives us a great platform to build on."
Despite the attempt to look forward and not backward, the 1-0 loss to Southampton in September marks Liverpool's only loss at Anfield this season, and Liverpool will want to remedy the result in the Saints' own backyard. The Reds' road form in the league has been equal parts successful and unsuccessful, and the tricky Southampton fixture will be the first real test away from home in the second half of the season.
Liverpool remain undefeated in the league in 2014, with an impressive points per game average of 2.5 that would put them at the top of the Premier League had it started on January 1. Sadly, it didn't, which only emphasizes the importance of maintaining the consistency of results earned in January and February in order to achieve their goals by season's end.
“Hopefully we can keep this run in the league going," Mignolet continued. "We’re happy with where we are but there’s still a long way to go."
