Expectant Dalglish points to bigger rewards for Reds

LIVERPOOL manager Kenny Dalglish has urged his players to start making good performances pay by putting more points on the board.

Last weekend’s 1-1 draw at home to Manchester City could easily have ended with the Premier League leaders’ first defeat of the season. It ended a fourth successive draw at Anfield, where they have taken just 11 points from seven matches.

Away from home the story is slightly different as they have won four and lost two in the league, with three successive victories on the road, and overall it is even better as they have six in a row in all competitions. They head to Fulham tonight knowing another win would equal a club record of seven set between December 1981 and February 1982 and again in January and March 1988.

And while many felt Liverpool deserved credit for their point against City a week ago, Dalglish does not see it like that.

“We are never going to be happy with a draw against anyone, we are happy with wins,” said the Scot.

“We were delighted with the way we played but I think we set our standards a little bit higher than drawing against people.

“I think we are better than that, and it’s up to us to stand up and be counted and start winning games.”

Last May the trip to Craven Cottage resulted in a 5-2 victory with Maxi Rodriguez scoring a hat-trick.

Fulham are just two points off the bottom three and have not won in the league for over a month but Dalglish expects Martin Jol to steady the ship. “Martin is a good coach, so I’m sure they’ll respond well to his thoughts.

“Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to put your own thoughts into the team but Fulham are very good at home and very unlucky against Spurs (losing 3-1) in a game I saw there.

“It’s the same every time we go to play a game — they’re always going to be difficult games — but at the moment I think we’re making it difficult for other teams as well.”

Fulham’s Dickson Etuhu admits the Cottagers face a tough challenge.

“They are a great team but we’ve got nothing to lose, have we?” he said.

“When you play the top teams you just go out and play. They are expected to win so the pressure is on them, not us.

“We will just go out and play as well as we can at home, where we always do well so it will be an exciting night.”

Fulham have struggled to cope with the exertions of playing on a Thursday night and then the following weekend, but Schwarzer remains philosophical on its impact.

“It can be tough at the beginning because you can get frustrated if results go against you a little bit, but you’ve got to take a long-term approach,” he said.

“You’ve got to look at it and think: ‘Okay, well the games may have gone against us this weekend, but we’ve got 38 league games to play this season and cup games as well’.

Liverpool boss Dalglish’s main decision tonight is who to bring in to replace injured midfielder Lucas Leiva, who has been ruled out for the rest of the season with cruciate knee ligament damage.

Damien Duff is a doubt for Fulham after suffering a calf injury.