Andy Robertson wants Liverpool to 'respect themselves' and admits spark is missing

After two goalless draws in a week, concerns have been raised about Liverpool's attack

Andy Robertson has called for Liverpool to start ‘respecting themselves’ after admitting that he and his team-mates lacked their usual spark against Manchester United.

Liverpool went top of the Premier League table courtesy of Sunday’s goalless draw at Old Trafford but their front three rarely threatened David de Gea’s goal.

While Roberto Firmino departed early with an ankle injury, Sadio Mané failed to register a shot and Mohamed Salah was shut out of the game before being substituted.

It was Liverpool’s second goalless stalemate in the space of a week following their Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich last week.

And like against Bayern, Liverpool failed to break down an opponent happy to sit deep, defend doggedly and threaten on the counter.

“It’s two top top-quality teams have done that to us in the last week - Bayern Munich and Man United. It doesn’t get much bigger than that,” Robertson said.

“I think something we’re struggling with is that we need to start respecting ourselves. These teams are showing us the respect and we need to use that as a positive.

“They’ve shown us the respect of sitting back and being a bit more defensive than they have been since the manager’s took over.

“We need to use that as a positive rather than a negative. It’s maybe something we need to work on.

“Last two games 0-0 it’s easy to say there’s a spark missing. Today, I can’t really remember any real chances, so of course today there was a spark missing,” the full-back admitted.

“That’s why it’s hardest to win a Premier League instead of a Champions League because it’s over 38 games. You can’t play well in every game but it’s about grinding out results.

“We might well look back on these games and say: ‘You know what, a time we weren’t playing our best we grinded out results and that’s what won us the league’.

“There are always times in the season where every team will look at it but we need to start getting back to playing better and attacking better.”

Though they missed an opportunity to claim three points against an injury-ravaged United, Liverpool’s fate is in their own hands with 11 games remaining.

Their one-point lead over champions Manchester City puts Jurgen Klopp’s side in command of the title race, with a testing trip to Old Trafford now out of the way.

When this was put to Robertson, he joked: “Easy isn’t it? If we win every game we win the league!

“If we do win every game, we win the league, that’s the position we’re in, no other team can say that.

"That’s the position we’re in but it’s the Premier League, there are going to be a lot of twists and turns and I do believe it’ll go right to the wire.

“[Pressue] is part and parcel of the job. Of course it’s [more intense] because the points tally that both us and City have had, usually you’d be out in front, and you’ve obviously got Tottenham - three teams have got a good points tally at this time of the season.

“It’s something you have to deal with, if you’re going to win the league you’re going to need to beat the rest. Whatever way you do it, you have to do it.

“It’s an exciting opportunity that we’ve got here and we just need to grab it with both hands and at least at the end of the season we go back and say we gave it our all whether we weren’t good enough or we were, as long as we’ve given it 100 per cent.”