Steven Gerrard

LIVERPOOL: Captain Steven Gerrard warned his Liverpool teammates that they can’t afford any more mistakes to finish in the top four this season.

After seven defeats — five more than in the whole of the previous Premier League campaign — Liverpool’s hopes of a Champions League place appeared to be slipping away seven weeks ago.

However, since losing at Portsmouth on Dec 19, Rafael Benitez’s team have put together a seven-match run of five wins and two draws to move back up to fourth.

On Thursday (3.45am) they will face Arsenal at Emirates Stadium — where they have not won in the league for a decade. And a win would put Liverpool just two points behind the third-placed Gunners with a trip to Manchester City next.

But having come unstuck at places like Tottenham, Sunderland, Fulham and Fratton Park this season, Gerrard said Liverpool want to build on last weekend’s 1-0 win over Everton in the Merseyside derby at Anfield.

“Everybody is still on a high and now we have got to take that high into the next game,” he told Liverpool Echo. “It’s a tough one. Arsenal away is always tough but we are using Everton as a platform and we’ve got to do it again.

“We want to extend our run and go on to better things as we can’t afford any slipups because there is pressure coming from Spurs, Manchester City and Aston Villa.

“We showed fantastic togetherness against Everton. We fought for each other and that’s why I am really proud of this team. It’s performances like these that will get you in the top four.

“There are a couple of very tough games coming up but if we can show what we have done in the last seven games, I don’t see why we can’t maintain it.”

Liverpool have kept six clean sheets on their current unbeaten run but go to the Emirates without the in-form defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos as he begins a threematch ban for his sending-off against Everton. Fortunately for Benitez, Daniel Agger made a timely return to the starting line-up at the weekend after a month out injured.

“It is bad when you lose players but we had more problems with the centrebacks at the start of the season and now we have more bodies,” said the Spaniard.

“So although we will lose something, maybe we can manage in a different way.

“Agger, Martin Skrtel, Jamie Carragher can all play so at least we have the bodies,” he said.

Agger has had a frustrating time over the last two years as a foot problem saw him miss the last eight months of the 2007- 2008 season while a back injury restricted appearances in the last campaign and he underwent surgery in the summer.

After his latest spell in the treatment room for a groin injury, the Denmark international’s return to fitness has eased any worries Benitez may have had about who to play at centreback with Jamie Carragher currently operating on the right because of Glen Johnson’s lengthy lay-off with a knee problem.