Ahead of Liverpool’s FA Cup replay against Championship side Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday night, manager Brendan Rodgers has urged his players to recapture the creativity which saw them put together a 13 game unbeaten Premier League run.
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The Reds have struggled in front of goal since claiming victories against Manchester City and Burnley at the start of last month.
Following those games at Anfield, the Reds were then held to a goalless draw by Rovers and squeezed past Swansea City thanks to a fortunate strike from Jordan Henderson at the Liberty Stadium.
A lack of creativity has been noticeable in the side’s last two games against Manchester United and Arsenal, which resulted in back-to-back defeats and dented hopes of Champions League football returning to Anfield next season.
In both games against their top-four rivals the Merseyside outfit failed to seriously test either goalkeeper and Rodgers wants that to change starting with the midweek fixture at Ewood Park:
“In the last four games that we’ve played, we haven’t created as much, and that’s more on ourselves.” he said in his pre-match press conference (via the official club website).
“Of course you give opponents credit, but every team will go into a game to defend well and work hard against you.”
“Probably the Blackburn game when we drew 0-0 and the games following that, we haven’t created as much.” the Northern Irishman added.
“That’s something that we want to reinforce – the creativity for chances and hopefully taking those chances. It’s a difficult system to play against, but it’s one of a number of systems we’ve played here and played very well.”