Pepe Reina believes Liverpool have to forget any talk of winning the title – and he admitted the Anfield outfit have still not recovered from the departure of Xabi Alonso.
Rafael Benitez’s side have suffered an indifferent start to the campaign with defeats to Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa during the opening fortnight leaving them six points off the top of the Premier League.
Liverpool have struggled under the weight of expectation of supporters who had anticipated another concerted championship challenge after finishing last season as runners-up.
And Reina reckons all talk of lifting the title must be placed on the back burner as Benitez’s men seek to climb back up the table.
“Well, something is clearly going wrong,” said the goalkeeper. “It’s not very common that Liverpool lose two games out of four. And we have to look at that.
“The team that we have now is the team that we have, and maybe it’s time to get to realistic and not think about the title but just think about winning the next game and the next three points.
“After April we can think about where we are, but it makes no sense to put ourselves under this pressure of winning titles.”
Alonso ended a five-year spell at Anfield by moving to Real Madrid for £30m in the summer, while his replacement, Alberto Aquilani from Roma, is recovering from injury and not expected to be available until mid-October.
And asked if Liverpool are suffering an Alonso hangover, Reina said: “Yes, it is a fair assessment, because Xabi Alonso is a great player and it’s no secret that for us he was our best player last season. But he wanted to go and the club decided to sell him.
“We have to stop talking about him because he is no longer a Liverpool player and we have to focus on the squad that we have.
“It happened late and we almost had no reaction at all, but we have a capable squad still to fight for some good things and the secret for us in my point of view is that we have to go step by step, game by game and that starts with Burnley.”
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