Nottingham Forest have been told to use the frustration from their defeat to Liverpool as motivation for a big week ahead.
The Reds only had themselves to blame for coming away from Anfield empty-handed, with some woeful defending at set-pieces proving costly as they lost 3-2. But the fact they came so close to getting a positive result is a source of encouragement for head coach Steve Cooper.
His team have now gone 11 games without a win and dropped to 19th in the Premier League table. They showed no shortage of fight in the north west, however - something they will need to replicate in their remaining six games, starting at home to Brighton and Hove Albion on Wednesday.
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"It was always going to be a big week. This is just the first part of it," said Cooper, whose team then go to Brentford next weekend.
"At any time of the season, to get something from Anfield you have to do everything absolutely right. What we didn't do right was the set-pieces.
"But at the same time, we know we've done some decent things in the game that give us a little bit of hope to cling on to, that if we can reproduce those aspects then we'll have a chance of getting the results we need before the end of the season. Running alongside that, we have to use the frustration and the disappointment of conceding the set-pieces - and ultimately the result - as motivation for Wednesday, because we're in the week we're in.
"We're at home now on Wednesday. We've got to try to put all those feelings together.
"Players really stuck to the plan and really committed to what we thought it would take to do well. In open play, for large parts, we did.
"If you're ever going to open the pitch up against Liverpool and try to match them at certain things, then it's a dangerous game. We weren't going to do that. You've seen them put teams to bed really quickly, home and away. They did that in their last game (against Leeds United).
"To think we've done that part of the game really, really well, but have conceded the goals we have in the way we have, and scored two ourselves - everyone knows we have struggled to get goals away from home - means it is probably even more frustrating."
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