Gerrard said: “I’ve had a difficult start to the season. I held my hands up in the dressing room after the Aston Villa game and said I wasn’t good enough. I’m man enough to do that and I needed to react myself to Monday’s performance, and I feel I did that.”

“It was big win. It’s been well documented that it’s been a tough week. No-one expected us to lose two of the opening three games. There was a lot of pressure on us to deliver three points. The performance had to play second fiddle, it was all about the result.”

“The criticism has come because of the expectation. Because we finished second last year, everybody expects us to have a flying start and go straight to the top of the table. People were writing us off after three games of the season, which is absolute madness.”

Gerrard added: “All the players knew the performance was not good enough against Villa and we needed to react. We were putting pressure on ourselves. We have some big players in the dressing room who expect to win every game. I thought every one of the lads stood up and was counted and the win was well deserved.”

“I think maybe the players were getting a bit edgy during games because we didn’t get off to a flying start. But we didn’t have a perfect pre-season. People joined up late and we had bad luck with some injuries, I’m not looking for excuses here, but we did have disruptions. So we always knew that the start at times would be difficult, we were going to be edgy and nervous and we had a few young lads come in. We can take a lot of confidence from this result, things will settle down and we can go on a good run.”

“Games that we drew last year, we’ll have to make sure that we win to make up for the two games we have lost already. But the league this year is a lot different than last year. The likes of Chelsea and Man U were winning almost every game last year but I don’t think that will be the case this time. With teams such as Man City and Tottenham stronger, there are seven or eight sides who can take points off everyone.”

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He Said: “We have seen Steven playing really well for a while now. He is one of our big names, a key player, and he will continue to be that. He will know that he has played a couple of games that are not up to his best level but, because he so often plays really well, people can see the difference. I know he will be ready now. The players are not stupid, they know when they are not playing well and not up to their best standard. He knows, everybody knows here, that we have to improve.”

Regarding him criticising senior players, Benitez said: “I was not naming any particular player when I was critical after the defeat by Villa but it is clear that everyone has to improve. We have analysed things and we have talked to all the players. The reaction from them has been very good.”

Despite loosing two games out of three games, Benitez is still positive for Title, Benitez explained: “Clearly we have more competition this year at the top of the table. Any top side can lose games. I don’t think it will be like before when a team wins the title as they have just won 10 or 12 games in a row.”

“Clearly everybody was expecting three wins in a row and then we’ll have won the league by September. It’s not the case. It’s impossible. You have to be positive. After two defeats we are really disappointed but we still have lots of games to play”.

“We have to improve, play better, make less mistakes and start doing this against Bolton. We can’t change what happened. We conceded an own-goal, a penalty and from a corner. Everything was against us on Monday. But that’s part of the game.”

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