Trent Alexander-Arnold has called on Liverpool to salvage their season in the Champions League after their title defence was left in tatters.
Boss Jurgen Klopp has given up on retaining the Premier League crown after Saturday’s damaging 3-1 defeat at Leicester.
The Reds conceded three times in the final 12 minutes – including goalkeeper Alisson gifting Jamie Vardy a goal which put the hosts ahead – to leave them fourth and 13 points behind leaders Manchester City.
Liverpool now face RB Leipzig in the first leg of their last-16 tie in the Champions League on Tuesday and Alexander-Arnold knows the significance of the encounter.
He said: “In situations like this you want the opportunity to put it right as soon as possible. It’s a different competition, which always freshens it up, different mentality going into it.
“It’s always nice to play in that so it’s exciting to have the prospect of a knockout game of football again. You wait so long for the knockout rounds of the Champions League – it’s always exciting.
“We need to recover and go again because we’ve got a big game come Tuesday.”
James Maddison, Vardy and Harvey Barnes scored in a frantic final period at the King Power Stadium after Mo Salah had given Liverpool a second-half lead.
Alisson handed Leicester the advantage with nine minutes left when he came for Youri Tielemans’ ball and collided with Ozan Kabak instead.
Trent Alexander-Arnold called on Liverpool to rediscover their habit of converting positive performances into victories. — Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 14, 2021
“I think for 70 to 75 minutes we were outstanding, up there with one of our best performances – counter-pressing, taking the ball off them for fun, they couldn’t really get out,” Alexander-Arnold told the club’s official website.
“I think in the first half we never created too many clear-cut chances but second half we did, had a few more shots, scored, and we were in the driving seat.
“Then the tables turned and they put the game to bed within the matter of five to 10 minutes and that’s football. It happened so quickly, it just happened in a moment and we’ve just crumbled at the end of the day.”
Leicester went second after victory on Saturday, six points ahead of Liverpool, and Barnes praised the Foxes’ clinical nature.
“It was obviously a great result for us,” he told LCFC TV. “They had a lot of the ball but we had some big chances in the game.
“We weren’t clinical in the first half and we knew going into second half, if we get those chances, we need to take them.
“Looking at them, you know that they’re a great side. You look at their recent form and a few of their results, we knew that if we turned up, we’d have a great chance against them. We’ve been really good against the big teams this year.
“So, we didn’t come into the game not believing in ourselves. We knew that if we turned up, we’d definitely get a result. I think it showed.
“As soon as we got our first goal, we had the belief to go and get the second and the third and kill the game off.”
