Carroll confident on European hopes

Kenny Dalglish's side trail fifth-placed Spurs by five points and the Londoners have a match in hand, although they do still have to come to Anfield next month. Liverpool would have given themselves a much better chance of turning up the pressure had they not lost at West Brom last week but Carroll said the team have moved on from that surprise defeat.

"Everyone has been lively in training," said the £35million January signing. "All of the lads are still confident we can get into fifth and get there (Europe)."

He added: "We just need a slip up to go for us and to keep working hard and getting three points week in, week out.

"We're looking forward to the next game against Manchester City (on Monday) now and putting West Brom behind us.

"They've got great players all-round and they've got some England boys in there that I was away with last week.

"But if we stick together like we can do, we can go out there and beat them."

Dalglish is likely to discover on Friday the extent of the groin injury sustained by captain Steven Gerrard last Friday, just as he was preparing to return to action after an operation on a similar problem.

He has already had mixed injury news this week, with centre-back Daniel Agger ruled out for the rest of the season after damaging a knee tendon at the Hawthorns and Glen Johnson sidelined for a month with a hamstring strain.

However, Fabio Aurelio has returned to training after nearly a month out with a hamstring problem while Jonjo Shelvey's recovery from a knee operation in February saw him get a run out for the reserves on Monday.

Source: PA

Source: PA