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• Liverpool defender says Gary Lineker sleight lifted his game
• Anfield veteran confident Roy Hodgson’s squad can recover

If it requires only modest improvement for Liverpool to regain their Champions League status, as Jamie Carragher contests, then the despair of José Reina’s fumble against Arsenal will not reside long at Anfield.

The recovery Roy Hodgson was employed to oversee began in several individual performances on Sunday. Carragher attributes his own to a pre-match sleight from Gary Lineker.

Before kicking a ball in this Premier League season the defender was informed his 32-year-old legs had gone by the Match of the Day presenter. Carragher heard the refrain frequently at the start of last season and expects more of the same this term. On day one, and from the former Everton striker he used to follow from the Gwladys Street, however, such a post-mortem was sure to prompt an indignant response.

“I read Gary Lineker before the game saying my legs had gone so I wasn’t in the best of moods before kick-off and I was more determined to play better than I normally am,” Carragher said.

“You have good days, bad days, but we did OK against Arsenal. Later on I’ll probably make a couple of mistakes and people will say I’m finished again. You look at Pepe [Reina], who was very disappointed after the game, but he’s one of the best goalkeepers in the world.”

Carragher was not the only Liverpool defender, or senior player, whose form fluctuated last season, contributing to the club’s sorry seventh place and hastening Rafael Benítez’s departure from the political in-fighting of Anfield.

Martin Skrtel and Glen Johnson were similarly troubled, and also responded impressively against Arsenal, while Javier Mascherano put aside his desire to leave to produce a committed display, and Steven Gerrard appeared re-energised in mind and body.

“I made too many mistakes at the start but I think I got my game together from the Man United game at home last season, from November onwards, so I like to think I had a good second half of the season,” the defender said. “But the whole season was unsatisfactory, doom and gloom, and so everything anyone did was criticised.

“I understand that we’re paid a lot of money and we’re in the limelight. When things don’t go well, there’s deserved criticism. Liverpool shouldn’t be finishing seventh and getting knocked out of every cup early so we deserved that last season.”

It is only one game, and uncertainty still surrounds a club in the process of separating the wheat from the chaff among potential new owners, but the Anfield veteran is confident Hodgson’s squad can recover this season. “We’re Liverpool. I