Steven Gerrard has described the limitations of Liverpool after they were downed 2-1 by Brighton following their big Champions League victory in the week.

The Reds have struggled to string wins together for much of this season. They started the campaign with seven wins on the spin across competitions following their Community Shield loss.

However, since then, Liverpool’s ability to go on a good run has been lacking. While they smashed Galatasaray 4-0 in the Champions League to progress to the quarter-finals in the week, they’d won just one of four games prior to that.

That included a first-leg loss to the Turkish side in Europe, a loss to bottom club Wolves in the Premier League and a draw against relegation-threatened Tottenham.

While the 4-0 victory over Galatasaray showed fluidity and solidity, they failed to build on that against Brighton, succumbing to a 2-1 loss against the eighth-placed Premier League club.

Liverpool legend Gerrard has told the club why they have struggled to string victories together from midweek to a weekend this season.

He told TNT Sports: “We’ve seen it quite a few times this season now where they put a lot of effort, performed really well in the Champions League stage.

“And all the emotion, all the energy, the intensity that you have to put in to win or get a result in those games, it’s having a big effect on them at the weekend.

“They haven’t got the options in the squad or on the bench to really make numerous changes to bring that energy and quality into the team to perform at the same level they do in midweek.

“And they had to play a lot of the same players today, they made a couple of changes that were forced on them. The manager had to make changes rather than wanting to maintain energy and it backfired.”

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One of the forced changes was Hugo Ekitike, who was forced off in just the eighth minute after struggling to recover from a challenge.

Liverpool might have feared that the striker would have missed a period of the remainder of the season, but Arne Slot has confirmed his top scorer simply had a dead leg and “could play tomorrow if he wanted to.”

A failure from the club to string together results will strike fear into them given their coming fixtures, though, with next weekend’s FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City followed by a Champions League quarter away at holders Paris Saint-Germain four days later.

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