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Gini Wijnaldum says Liverpool players absolve Alisson of blame as he has ‘won trophies for us’ before
The keeper's errors led to Man City's victory at Anfield
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Your support makes all the difference.Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum says the squad do not hold Alisson to blame after his errors in possession gifted Manchester City two goals on Sunday.
The Reds had battled back to 1-1 in the second half, but the Brazilian goalkeeper twice erred with passes out in a matter of minutes and the league Premier League leaders netted both times within seconds, Ilkay Gundogan and Raheem Sterling the beneficiaries.
Man City ran out 4-1 winners to leave the reigning champions facing a battle to secure a top-four finish in a season when their squad has been injury-ravaged and performance levels have dropped significantly.
READ MORE: Premier League fixtures and table - all matches by date and kick-off time
But Wijnaldum says the only thoughts from his team-mates regarding Alisson are a collective disappointment that they were not able to rescue the situation for him, as he has done for the team a number of times over the past few campaigns.
“When you play football, you always know everyone can make a mistake. If you look at the whole season, I don’t know how many players made a mistake," he told liverpoolfc.com.
“And if you look at the other side, [Alisson] saved us so much. It will always happen that a goalkeeper makes a mistake. You just try to fix it in the game.
“We were more disappointed that we couldn’t change it around for him because if you look at since he was here how many times he saved us – he won trophies for us – it’s difficult that we couldn’t change it around for him.”
The loss to City was the Reds' third at home in succession, leaving them fourth in the table but with Merseyside rivals Everton having two games in hand - winning one would put them level on points with the champions.
Jurgen Klopp's team face Leicester City next weekend and restart their Champions League campaign against RB Leipzig after that, with the derby against the Toffees to follow on 20 February.
The manager also came to the defence of Alisson after the match, with the Reds' focus now on trying to find some consistency after taking just two wins from their last seven games in all competitions.
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