"I think some of the problems are because we haven't been doing as well as we can on the pitch," said the Liverpool centre-back.
"As players, we have to take responsibility to sort things out on the pitch. Anything that goes on off the pitch then is nothing to do with the players.
"We are paid to play and we did that on Tuesday, but we know we need to improve over the next few weeks because we know in the last nine or 10 games we haven't been good enough.
"I know some people say what happens off the pitch affects players. Maybe it does. But it doesn't affect me. Why should it? I am paid to play, your wages are still coming in, you are still playing for Liverpool, so I don't know why it should affect players and to be honest I don't know if it does that much.
"The results haven't been good enough because we haven't been good enough. End of story."
