Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk accused his team of giving up and apologised to fans following their FA Cup humiliation at Manchester City.
The Reds’ hopes of salvaging domestic silverware from a disappointing season were crushed in a 4-0 quarter-final defeat at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
After an evenly-matched opening half-hour, the visitors capitulated after Van Dijk fouled Nico O’Reilly and Erling Haaland scored the resulting penalty.
Haaland went on to complete a hat-trick as as City struck four times in a devastating 18-minute spell spanning the interval.
Van Dijk said: “I can only apologise to the fans for what we have shown, especially the second half.
“Obviously you come out with the right intentions from the dressing room, to hopefully score for 2-1 as soon as possible to change the game.
“The opposite happens and to come back from 3-0 is obviously very difficult here – but also you shouldn’t give up and that’s maybe, at a certain point, what happened.
“We let our fans down, we let ourselves down, and the manager. The way we played in the second half, especially, must hurt for everyone. It definitely hurts me.”
The dismal result intensified the pressure on manager Arne Slot ahead of a daunting Champions League quarter-final trip to Paris St Germain.
Van Dijk said: “It’s a together thing, isn’t it? Obviously he’s responsible as the manager but we are the ones on the pitch that have to do it.
“The matter of fact is now, PSG are waiting for us. I watched them Friday a little bit. It will be so tough again. So we have to be ready mentally as soon as possible.
“I’ve been lucky enough to play for Liverpool for so many years. The main thing we always had was togetherness. Now obviously are in a little bit of a transition we have to find it.
“It’s difficult to perform every two days if you don’t have it consistently.”
Liverpool’s struggles have also left their hopes of Champions League for next season in doubt.
They face a crucial Premier League with Fulham between their two games against PSG.
Van Dijk said: “We have a responsibility to ourselves and, especially, to the fans. If we want to make something out of this season, then we have to try and produce something special the next three games.
“I’m trying to think how we can turn this round. We’ve been going through this almost 75 per cent of the season.
“We fall back into games where we get beaten on intensity or beaten on how much you really want to go for it. It’s a difficult one to take and everyone has to look at themselves.”
