Liverpool told by Aurelio they must 'improve in every area'

Team to focus on facing rivals Everton after pain of Champions League failure

Liverpool's Brazilian defender Fabio Aurelio maintains his club's big names must shoulder the blame for their humiliating exit from the Champions League. Aurelio played in midfield in Tuesday 1-0 victory in Budapest against the Hungarian champions Debrecen. But the win was in vain as Fiorentina's victory over Lyons ensured Liverpool drop into the Europa League.

"The players still have confidence and we know that it's only us who can change our situation by working hard to improve," Aurelio said. "We know we can do better, certainly than we are doing at the moment. The team are now intent on winning at Everton on Sunday and starting to get more points right to the end of the season. Then we will see what position we are in, and what we are able to fight for.

"It is a big game next against Everton and a big opportunity to improve and regain the strength we need for a long season ahead.

"It is difficult to explain how we feel," Aurelio added. "Being Liverpool, you expect to go much further in the competition than we have done this season. But now we cannot allow ourselves to dwell on what has happened, we must concentrate on the future to fight for a different title, the Europa League. We also have the challenge to do things better in the Premier League as well.

"It is difficult to know where this campaign has gone wrong, but against Lyons we lost goals in the last minutes of both games and that has made the difference. Liverpool used to be more solid in defence, and we have only scored four goals in five games in the group matches, so we have to improve in all areas. We have been missing a lot of players through injury problems, so we have to think that things can only improve in that situation.

"The Europa League is an opportunity to win a trophy and that's how we will go into this competition. At Liverpool, every competition is important, we want to win trophies. We will have a great chance to get a trophy and we'll go for it, but there is still a long way go until May and we have to improve."