Soccer:Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish expects everyone at the club to stick together to pull through their growing crisis. The Reds crashed to a sixth defeat in seven Premier League games at Newcastle yesterday to remain eighth in the table, a place below neighbours Everton.
Despite winning the Carling Cup and having an FA Cup semi-final to come, Dalglish is coming under mounting pressure to arrest a decline that has left his side 16 points off the Champions League positions.
Dalglish was praised for restoring harmony at Anfield after taking over from Roy Hodgson last year and he is convinced the club have the spirit to battle through the latest difficulties.
"I just think we have got to stick together," the Scot said today. "They (the players) will stick together because they want to get it right, and the best way to do it is to stick together and believe in what they are doing. It's not as if they don't work hard, it's not as if they don't have the determination and effort to put it right.
"It's up to us to harness the frustration and disappointment properly, work on it and take it as a positive because if they start to enjoy losing games, we'd have a problem."
Striker Luis Suarez has also vowed to fight on to get the club moving back in the right direction. Liverpool's poor league run actually stretches back to the turn of the year, since when they have collected just eight points in 12 games.
Suarez tweeted: "Difficult moments after the last matches.... We must continue to work until the end! YNWA."
That sequence has at least been punctuated by good cup results but the Reds now have a problem for their semi-final against Everton on April 14th after goalkeeper Jose Reina was sent off at the Sports Direct Arena.
Reina was dismissed nine minutes from time for aiming a headbutt at James Perch and now faces a three-match ban which will include the Wembley clash with the Toffees. Although Perch was widely condemned for his reaction, Dalglish admitted the Spaniard deserved his red card and Liverpool have not lodged an appeal. The club had until this afternoon to exercise that right but the Football Association have confirmed no notification has been received.
Liverpool started brightly against Newcastle with a Craig Bellamy cross being tipped onto the woodwork and Danny Simpson fortunate not to concede a penalty against them for handling on the line. But things started to go wrong after Papiss Cisse opened the scoring on 19 minutes and their fate was sealed by the Senegal international's second goal just before the hour.
Dalglish said: "Some of the football we played in the first half was good and exciting and with maybe a bit more luck and/or composure, then we could have been in front. The goal we lost, we can learn from, the first one.
"There were lots of times when we created openings, but we have got to take them and we have got to believe in ourselves and believe in what we are doing. If we do that, then we will have a better opportunity."
The other major talking point concerned the performance of former Newcastle striker Andy Carroll, who joined the Reds in a €41 million deal in January 2011.
The 23-year-old endured a frustrating afternoon in front of his old fans and was booked for diving early on before being substituted and trudging straight down the tunnel 10 minutes from time.
Dalglish defended Carroll and, on the subject of his booking, said the player had not tried to con the referee into awarding a penalty.
Dalglish said: "We have no qualms about when Andy went down with the goalkeeper. I thought it wasn't a penalty kick and I also thought Andy was losing his balance anyway before he reached the goalkeeper and even if he had got past the goalkeeper, he might still have fallen over.
"We don't have a problem with that - maybe a problem with the yellow card because I don't think he was intentionally trying to get a penalty kick."
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