"I said this is the best squad I've been involved with and I still believe that," said the Liverpool captain.
"If we're not to get to the finals it will be hard knowing we would have been possibly one of the best teams in the tournament with a great chance of winning it.
"It will kill me watching but, if you look at this qualifying campaign so far, we haven't been consistent enough. If we had been, we wouldn't now be in this situation.
"Maybe there was a slight hangover after the World Cup when it was a massive disappointment to go out of the tournament when we did, especially on penalties again.
"Maybe it took a bit of time for us to get over that - but as a player you don't want to look for excuses."
