The Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher thinks that the team can’t use the excuse that they are missing lots of injured players any more, and the team that faced Arsenal was probably the best team they could field.

He agrees that they were maybe not completely fit, but from now on their can be no more excuses.

And that is probably as strong a side as we have,” he said. “There are still players in that team who are not 100 per cent fit, but we need that team playing regularly now.

“If we produce the sort of performance we did in the first half and get a few more players fit, I’m sure we’ll win a few more games between now and the end of the season. We have to dust ourselves down now and move to Wednesday.

“For the quality of the players and the stature of the club, we should be doing better. Statistics can change quickly – and we have got to do that. It’s tough at the moment, but part of turning out for Liverpool is having big character. That’s what we need now.

“Between now and May it is going to be a grind at times, but we have to stick together, get through it and, as I’m doing, pray that at the end of the season there will be something worthwhile for what we’ve gone through.”

“The run we are on is a very difficult one and that saps a bit of the confidence,” said Carragher. “We are only human and when things aren’t going well, the confidence does deflate a little bit. We played really well in the first half and then the goal goes in at the start of the second and that’s when the confidence seems to go.

“But that is when you need to show character. The only way that the confidence comes back is by winning games. You grind out a few results and hopefully with each game you get more confi dent. But when you’re on the run we are, the confi dence goes. And that’s only natural. We can’t look for excuses.

“That’s the way it is in top-level football. We know that any little thing can get pounced on – and that’s happening at the moment. Wigan is a massive game. I have tried too many times down the years trying to work things out, so there’s no point looking further ahead than that.

“We’ll just try to get three points and then move on to Portsmouth on Saturday. But we have to look at ourselves and realise that we have to do much better. There’s always light. The great thing about football is that there’s always another game to put it right. And that other game is Wigan. We have to start again. If we win on Wednesday, everyone’s delighted. And we take that in to Saturday.

“You know how the season has gone, and the only way we can judge it is at the end of the season and see where we are. We could pick up a couple of cups and everyone would be delighted. But at the moment, we have to take every game as it comes.”

If they play the same team against Wigan, and DON’T win, then we will know that Liverpool are in a full-blown crisis!