“No Excuses” Says Mignolet

Oh, hey. More players past and present chiming in with their thoughts on Liverpool’s recent poor form. This time it’s Liverpool part-time shot stopper and full-time pear magnate Simon Mignolet.

“There will be a few things we could say,” said the goalkeeper in an interview with liverpoolfc.com. “We could say we had a few injuries, we’ve had a lot of games, Sadio went to the Africa Cup of Nations... but in the end that’d all be about excuses and we don’t want to look for them. It’s about looking forward.

“We know January wasn’t really the best of months, but we don’t want to look back – we have an opportunity again against Arsenal and that’s where we have to look forward to.”

Last month (two, if we’re honest) “wasn’t really the best of months.” That would be an understatement, particularly after the high standard set in the opening salvo of this campaign.

Anyway, the Belgian ‘keeper is trying to keep a positive attitude, and use the recent mistakes to learn going forward.

“You can use (criticism) as soon sort of energy to get yourselves back up again and push yourselves even further and harder, looking forward to the next opportunity.

“That’s what we have to do. It’s a new game (against Arsenal), a new 90 minutes to play and this weekend it’ll be the only thing that matters.

“12 games is a lot of games and a lot of points to gain or lose. Let’s try and win every game – that’s of course what the objective should be.”

If Liverpool can win this weekend, they’ll still likely be on the outside looking in to the coveted top 4. No, they’ll need to find a rhythm against the “smaller” teams that have been the continual stumbling block all season.

Even if Liverpool play their best, a loss against Arsenal is excusable. Losing the following match at home to Burnley wouldn’t be. Hopefully by next Sunday, we will have seen that this team has truly turned the corner and put the excuses behind them.