Liverpool Had “Extra Motivation” Against United After Watching Other Results

It’s been a difficult season for Liverpool football club, but with four wins in their last five league games the team appear to be finding their form when it matters most down the stretch and have reinserted themselves firmly in the top four conversation.

Following their recent revival of domestic fortunes, Sunday’s 7-0 rather put an exclamation mark on all of that as the Reds demolished historic rivals Manchester United at Anfield. As much fun as it was, though, it’s important now to take that energy and use it for the next game.

“You have to enjoy these moments,” noted left back Andy Robertson. “We work hard every week for moments like this. But we have to keep going. We’ve got a massive game Saturday and you have to back it up. It’s pointless getting these results and not being able to back it up.”

It was only a few weeks ago that Liverpool were mired in ninth and had a double-digit deficit to make up if they wanted to be in the top four race. Now, they’re fifth and three points off Tottenham with a game in hand.

The team have gotten the run of results they needed to make up ground—and got the bit of help they needed on the other side of it, too, with teams like Spurs and Newcastle that they were chasing stumbling in recent weeks just as the Reds have begun to belatedly surge.

Having gotten to the point where they might even be considered mild favourites for the top four, the goal is to keep the momentum going with Bournemouth up next before they return to European play with the difficult task of heading to Madrid behind in their Round of 16 tie.

“Pplaying on the Sunday, you sit back and watch all the other results,” Robertson said of a weekend that saw Spurs lose to Wolves while Newcastle lost to Manchester City. “We knew Newcastle would have a tough game at Man City, and Tottenham at Wolves.

“We know in this league anyone can beat anyone. When they’re the two that you’re chasing for the spots, it’s important you capitalise when both of them drop points. That was one of the motivations. We don’t need much motivation to play against Man United but that was an extra motivation.

“The table will look a lot healthier but it’s still not what we want to see. We need to keep pushing, we need a strong finish to the end of the season and we’re making good steps to doing that. But we have to carry this momentum forward and hopefully we can get top four.”