Case against the defence

Last updated : 24 November 2002 By Gary Purvis
After a 3-2 defeat at Fulham the Liverpool boss was quick to blame poor defending, not just from the back four, but from the whole team.

"I don't think we played particularly badly but our defending play could have been better and that's a team thing," said Houllier.

"One strong aspect of our game has been our defending but it's not at the moment.

"That's not about the back four or the goalkeeper but the whole team. We must make a special effort to defend better.

"We have improved in attack but we are letting ourselves down in our defending .

"Never mind that our goalkeeper spilled the ball, we should have been the first to it after that.

"Dudek is like the rest of us, he's going through a bad period."