Football Tigers

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher admits the Reds have been "average at best" this season and must put that right with a win at Old Trafford.

The stand-in skipper has been critical of Liverpool's shortcomings but believes things are moving in the right direction after Wednesday's win at Bordeaux.
Carragher, who captained the side in Steven Gerrard's absense, also revealed he sought out boss Rafael Benitez to discuss his concerns about his own form and that of the team after a disjointed start to the campaign.
Benitez has not been slow to demand more from his experienced players, and while Carragher rated the victory against Bordeaux as a big step in the right direction, he knows anything short of that performance at Old Trafford will all but end Liverpool's title aspirations.
Carragher said: "The boss has talked to us about our performances this season, and I have been saying the same thing myself - a lot of the players, including myself, have not been performing as well as we have the last few seasons.
"That has made it difficult for the new players to ask them to settle in quickly. The players who have been here a while have maybe not helped them to settle in by producing performances up to our own standards.
"We have got to look to ourselves, to find our own best levels, and now we have achieved a good away win at last I hope that everyone will see us back playing at our best, collectively and individually.
"We have been average, at best, and we are not even halfway towards our true form. We are probably only a quarter of the way there at the moment."
With Peter Crouch's second-half header securing Champions League success in south-west France, Carragher is now steeling himself for another searching examination.
He said: "Teams like Manchester United and Chelsea are pulling away so it is going to be very difficult. We got a good start in Europe and the Community Shield, but it did not continue like that.
"We knew that we had to get back to that form, it has not been what we would have wanted.
"United are flying at the moment and it is massive for us to go there and get something. People will start saying that if we lose we are out of it, that's maybe too early for that.
"But all we want to do is (take) one step at a time, collectively. It's a long way to go but the win in Bordeaux was a step in the right direction."
Carragher, with Sami Hyypia equally effective alongside him, produced Liverpool's best defensive performance of the season during the win against Bordeaux.
Carragher added: "We have missed players. There was no Stevie (Gerrard) in Bordeaux and we only had Momo Sissoko for a while. Bolo (Boudewijn Zenden) and Xabi (Alonso) did fine, but we do miss Stevie and Momo. The are top players, and it was great to see Momo come on and do so well.
"It was always going to be difficult to do what we did last season, that run at the end of the campaign was outstanding. We always want to reach that standard, but we would have liked to have done a bit better than we have been doing.
"We need more clean sheets, and there's nowhere better to go and produce a top performance than at Manchester United."
He added: "This season we have not done so well away, and we knew that we had to put that right in Europe before we went to Manchester United.
"We always accept that playing United is massive, so we needed a boost to our confidence before going there."