Liverpool midfielder Emre Can has accepted some of the blame for last weekend’s defeat at Manchester United.
The Germany international was criticised by pundits for not providing a covering screen for Dejan Lovren, who twice lost out in aerial challenges with Romelu Lukaku which led to both of United’s goals in the 2-1 victory.
Can has held his hands up and shouldered some of the responsibility.
“It was one of the mistakes we did around the goals,” he told liverpoolfc.com.
“The second balls were not good around the two situations where we conceded. In my position, it was not good from me.
“We have to learn from it and do it better in the next game against Watford.
“We made very easy mistakes when we conceded the goals; we have to defend better as a team there.
“It was a very disappointing result but I think we can learn a lot from it.”
Can was partly responsible for both goals conceded by Liverpool.
While the defeat allowed United to pull away in the race for second place in the Premier League they exited the Champions League this week, leaving just Liverpool and Manchester City as England’s representatives in the quarter-finals.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have not lost a match in Europe this season and Can admits as they await Friday’s draw to discover their opponents in the last eight the reality of being able to win the competition is getting closer.
“We don’t go anywhere and say ‘OK, now we will see what happens’. Of course we want to win the games,” he added.
“We are in the quarter-finals and of course we have to play from game to game, but we dream a little bit of winning the Champions League.”