Liverpool head coach Arne Slot admits they are well aware of the scrutiny on his side after three successive defeats, but does not believe the players "wake up at night" worrying about it.
After reeling off seven straight wins, they then lost three times in the week before the international break.
Slot admits having almost two weeks without being able to work with his players has had positives and negatives, but as they seek to avoid losing four in a row for the first time since November 2014, he does not believe it is weighing heavily on his squad.
"These players might need me - but I don't think they need me - to tell them what has happened," he said ahead of the visit of arch-rivals Manchester United, against whom they are looking to set a club-record 10 matches without defeat.
"Results don't lie, if you lose three in a row we have to do better.
"But I think these players that have experienced so many things don't wake up at night thinking 'Oh, we lost three times'.
"We need to be aware of that and we are aware of that and we need to react to that, but we have to give the same reaction if we win three times in a row and Manchester United is on the fixture list.
"But maybe if you lose three times you are hoping for that spark or that one or two per cent more, not only from us but from our fans on Sunday."
A fortnight without Premier League action has allowed some of the heated debate about their recent form, flagged as a "crisis" in some quarters, to die down.
However, Slot knows the harsh spotlight of scrutiny will refocus on his side at Anfield on Sunday.
He would have liked the opportunity to have corrected their blip as soon as possible, but with a number of players performing well for their countries, he is hopeful a change of scenery may have brought them back refreshed.
"I assume everyone is talking about it now again, I don't know. It is just the situation as it is," he said.
"You could argue it is better to have had them with you and to have the next game and then people cannot talk about it for two weeks.
"Now people have been able to talk about it for two weeks.
"What I like about top players is you don't notice anything if they win three times in a row, they don't walk into the dressing room feeling as though they are so much better than the rest of the league.
"But the outside world is very focused on the results - which we are as well. We don't deny the results, we need to do better - not only because we lost three times but if you look at the 10 games it was 10 times quite equal.
"We are trying to work every single day to make the gap between us and the teams we face bigger but it's easier said than done."
"It's one game that we need to prove again that we are playing better" - Ruben Amorim
Meanwhile, Ruben Amorim has challenged his Manchester United players to show they are heading in the right direction at Anfield.
The Red Devils are bidding to close to within two points of their opponents and with a slightly more positive feeling around the club following the victory over Sunderland before the international break.
United have not won at the home of their great rivals for nearly a decade, but they have taken a point from their last two visits, including January’s 2-2 draw.
"We played well," said Amorim, who is yet to oversee back-to-back wins in the league. "I was really upset at the end of the game because we proved that day that we can compete against any opponent.
"I know that it’s special for our club, I know they are fighting all the time for the number of titles, I know what it means to the fans. But it’s one game that we need to prove again that we are playing better.
"I think we are playing better. We need to do better in both boxes. It’s one more game that we need to win."
Liverpool equalled United’s tally of 20 top-flight titles last season, while Amorim’s side slumped to a 15th-placed finish.
The Portuguese acknowledged the current power imbalance but is keen to focus on more short-term goals.
"Sometimes things change really fast but, if you see the history of both clubs, you can feel that sometimes you have one club that is winning, winning, winning and the other club is having a bad moment," he said.
"That happened with Liverpool when Manchester United was winning everything. And that happened with Manchester United when Liverpool was winning everything.
"So we just have to acknowledge that, to be really honest with the fans, but we can win any game. So, if we think about just winning the next game, that is the most important thing, we can win the next game.
"If we are going to fight to be at the same level of Liverpool in the future, that is the idea. I don’t know how long it is going to take."
United’s draw against Liverpool last season ended a run of four straight defeats and the caveat to the Red Devils’ poor form under Amorim is that they have had some notable results against the top teams, including taking four points off Manchester City in 2024/25.
Asked why they have performed better in those matches, the 40-year-old said: "Maybe the expectations. When you have to win, it’s so much harder to play like that.
"We have some difficulties sometimes to deal with that – when people expect Manchester United not to win that game, maybe it’s easier for the players to perform.
"We need to change that, but to change that we need to have confidence to win more games, to have more points, to feel more free to play the game."
