“Maybe we’ll have to start to imagine not being in the top four. But for as long as we have a chance we have to keep believing.
“If you play at a football club like Liverpool you always need to take responsibility, no matter who you are. You do that on and off the pitch, but you must definitely do it in the games.”
The more precarious Liverpool’s Champions League hopes become, the greater the number of reports appearing linking their players with moves away from the club should they fail to make the top four.
Agger, though, is not among them. “I wouldn’t walk away,” he says. “I’d fight to put it right next year because I’m not a quitter.
“I’ve been close to winning trophies, but I still don’t have any. That’s a big disappointment because that’s the reason I came to Liverpool.”
With the threat of a 10-point penalty for going into administration hanging over them, Portsmouth are almost certain to be relegated from the Premier League.
But Agger’s centre-back partner Jamie Carragher has warned that lack of pressure could work in Pompey’s favour this evening.
“Portsmouth being down there is a strange one because no-one was battering them at the start of the season,” says Carragher. “They were always creating chances and Fratton Park is a difficult place to go.
“They’ve got loads of players but you don’t really know who they are or who’s who. It’s hard to work out who will be playing, or who you’re going to be up against.
“With administration it will probably bring them closer together and make them stronger. They’ve got nothing to lose.”
The nadir of Liverpool’s season came at Fratton Park in December with a 2-0 defeat in which Javier Mascherano was controversially sent off by referee Lee Mason.
Portsmouth have won only one league games since, and Benitez says: “The defeat down there was so disappointing for so many reasons. The sending off was a massive mistake. Another one. The same referee.
“I was really disappointed, partly because we did not play well but also because too many things went against us at the same time.”
Maxi Rodriguez, ineligible in the Europa League, will come into consideration for a starting role, while Yossi Benayoun is hoping to shrug off an ankle injury that ruled him out of the trip to France.
Despite the defeat in Lille, Benitez believes there was a significant improvement in Liverpool’s performance.
“I was expecting a good reaction from the players, and we got it, so the approach must be the same against Portsmouth,” he says. “People are saying we have to score a lot of goals because it is a team at the bottom, but the aim is to win and try and play well, that is all.
“It is such a difficult league that it doesn’t matter who you are up against – if you don’t produce the right performance, you won’t get the result you want.
“If we don’t, there will be more pressure and people will be more nervous, so it is important we are on our game.”
