Rodgers seeks Reds consistency

Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers insists that the club's exit from Europe gave everyone a chance to reassess their season.

Victory over Zenit St Petersburg last week was not enough to prevent the Reds' last chance of silverware disappearing as a result of the away goals rule.

It may be a cliche but it meant Rodgers' side have to concentrate on the league, and he is hopeful they can bounce back quickly and lift themselves up from a disappointing eighth position.

"Certainly it gave us a reflective period to look at the league and focus solely on that, because that's ultimately where we want to have the consistency," said the Liverpool boss, whose side have not played since the Zenit match nine days ago.

"When you play as well as we did against Zenit, of course you want the next game sooner rather than later but it wasn't to be.

"We had a period of time to recuperate physically and mentally. The players have been outstanding in training, some of the intensity and quality has been great to see from a coaching perspective.

"We're going into the final run-in now and we really want to push on in these last 11 games.

"With the form that we've shown, with the Swansea game (a 5-0 victory) and in particular the Zenit game - the performance level against a very good side was fantastic - we just want to keep that going."

On Saturday evening Liverpool face Wigan at the DW Stadium, where they have surprisingly not won since September 2007.

In fact, November's 3-0 victory at Anfield is their only success in six matches against the Latics.

It is that sort of inconsistency, replicated several times this season, which has contributed to eighth-placed Liverpool being 10 points behind Chelsea in the final Champions League qualification place.

This campaign has been a transitional one for the club and Rodgers, who is in his first major job having left Swansea last summer.

However, the Northern Irishman is confident he can make the changes needed to turn around years of gradual decline.

"I've signed a deal here and hope to see that through," he said.

"In that period of time I believe, along with the board, we can make really good progress here.

"Nothing has changed my mind on that - I'm ever so happy I made that decision to come.

"This is a great club that operates with huge dignity in everything they do; it's a very unified club at the moment in how we're working and we hope to put the ambition in place that can allow us to go forward and hopefully get trophies at the end of it."