“We were standoffish in the first half. Douglas [Luiz] scored a great goal and we were right back in it and then we make the same mistakes over and over again and we were punished.

“It is about us as players taking responsibility and being more streetwise. We need to start getting results and we are all aware of it, it would be a bigger problem if the effort wasn’t there.

“There were a lot more bodies on the line but we seem to be weak when we score a goal. It is something we have addressed after the game and something we need to improve if we are to take the club where we want to.

“If you don’t perform you get criticism and you can either go into your shell and worry or you can puff your chest out and try to do something about it. It is not going to turn overnight.

“It has nothing to do with the manager. Players are put out to do jobs and if we don’t perform those jobs it is our responsibility.”

John McGinn.



“I’m not in control of that [Douglas Luiz’s future].

“There’s two people, well, there’s more than two people who are in control of that, but I’m certainly not one of them.

“That will be Douglas, that will be his agent and that will be what happens around that.

“I’d like to keep him, he’s a fantastic player, I’ve made that abundantly clear.

“We are not in position where we need to lose our top players, but at the same time Douglas has a year to go and it is one of them [sic] really touchy situations where the club has to do what is best for the club, not necessarily what is best for me.”

“We improved a lot second half and had some really interesting breakaways.

“Douglas provides a bit of magic to get us back in the game. Again we concede two goals because we didn’t get the detail of our defending right.

“Of course the keeper [Emiliano Martínez] could have done a bit better for us for the second one but he kept us in the game for large parts of it as well. At the moment we are struggling to keep clean sheets and we need to get back to basics.

“Of course I do [think about being sacked]. I am really honest and critical of myself. If I stood here and said I wasn’t concerned I think you’d look at me as though I was from a different planet.

“I’m well aware of where we are at and I don’t like how the table looks.

“I’m sure my players don’t and I know the fans don’t so we all need to stick together. I think it’s natural if the pressure builds, I was asked that last weekend in terms of the Villa fans’ reaction and I take that on my shoulders, I take full responsibility, I won’t shirk that.

“I think we certainly improved as the game went on, we showed a lot of commitment, character, we were hanging in at times, but at places like Arsenal you’ve got to do that.

“You’ve got to show that you can suffer and get through it and we did at times. We looked dangerous but if we keep getting really important moment defensively wrong in key areas, we’re going to continue to concede goals and that’s a problem.

“It’s hard to put your finger on because we work on it daily. We speak about this most days about getting out to people, if it’s Martinelli we know he likes it on his right foot so show him on his left foot, if it’s Saka show him on his right foot because he has a good left foot.

“You need to get out to someone quick then you need to do it 100 per cent, full throttle, at the weekend we didn’t do it and there’s a deflection. We don’t get out to Martinelli quick enough and he’s allowed to cross it, we have a problem from it. Then we have a catalogue of errors for the second goal so it’s really frustrating that the messages don’t seem to be going in.

“I think the technical level in terms of the first half was nowhere near good enough for the talent of players we’ve got.

“We didn’t allow ourselves to create enough, because if you turn it over instantly and I think that was a collective thing, it’s very hard to go and create, especially here.

“Second half everyone improved, we kept the ball, we passed through Arsenal, we made Arsenal face their on goal, we broke quick, we showed our power and our talented players really stepped forward and I was much happier. It would’ve been nice for that to be the case for 90 minutes.

“I wish I wasn’t as frustrated as I am because I could wax lyrical about that moment for a long time and this is no fluke. I’ve not sure I’ve seen that many corners scored in my life, let alone two in three weeks so credit to him. It’s a wonderful moment but unfortunately a a group we haven’t given Douglas a better moment, because if that gives us a big point here or it leads for us to win the game it’s a more important goal.”

Steven Gerrard.