Mignolet: No excuses for Liverpool

Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet refuses to look for excuses following his side's poor start to 2017 and is desperate to return to winning ways against Arsenal at the weekend.

Jurgen Klopp's men have dropped to fifth place in the Premier League table after collecting just six points from their first seven games this calendar year.

Their 3-1 loss to Leicester City on Monday left Liverpool a point adrift of Arsenal in fourth going into Saturday's meeting at Anfield, which will be crucial for the Merseyside club's Champions League ambitions.

"There will be a few things we could say; we could say we had a few injuries, we have had a lot of games, Sadio [Mane] went to the Africa Cup of Nations... but in the end that would all be about excuses and we do not want to look for them," Mignolet told the official Liverpool website.

"It is about looking forward. We know January was not really the best of months, but we do not want to look back. We have an opportunity again against Arsenal and that is where we have to look forward to.

"We showed at the Emirates at the beginning of the season [in a 4-3 win] that we can get a result, play really good football and create chances against Arsenal. That is what we have to look to do again.

"It is the next game that counts and that is why we are looking forward. You can use [criticism] as some sort of energy to get yourselves back up again and push yourselves even further and harder, looking forward to the next opportunity.

"That is what we have to do. It is a new game [against Arsenal], a new 90 minutes to play and this weekend it will be the only thing that matters."