Rafa Benitez has admitted his frustration following the 0-0 draw with Portsmouth at Anfield.
“I think we tried from the beginning until the end to win the game,” said Benitez.
“It’s clear that we have problems there (in midfield) but today maybe it wasn’t as big a problem, today our problem was in the wide areas and with the strikers because we could not score.
“In the first half they played deep and in the second they were even deeper.
“When you work as hard as today and you cannot score you must be disappointed, but you cannot be too hard on the players because they worked hard to get it out wide and tried hard but it was difficult.
“They sat back, at the end they were wasting time and it was frustrating.”
He added: “It was clear with two more points we would have been third but now we have to think about the next game at Wigan.
“It’s clear now that we have to have a strong mentality. The players are trying hard to do their best and we must see if we can keep the players we have at the top level.”
