Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers believes his side will bounce back from their shock defeat to West Brom during Thursday’s Europa League tie with Zenit St Petersburg.

The Reds were beaten 2-0 by the Midlanders earlier this week, in a game they dominated for large spells.

Despite the result, Rodgers was happy with his team’s performance and believes that they will show signs of improvement away in Russia:

"These players always react very well," he is quoted by Sky Sports.

"They were very disappointed, like we all were, because we wanted to make our home form better in the league.

"We entered into the game against West Brom with the best defensive home record in the league, so that shows the mark of improvement we were making as a group.

"It's something that left the players disappointed, but they will react in the right manner. They want to work well and they're very good at moving on. That's something we'll have to do if we want to progress.”

Following the defeat, some have written off Liverpool’s hopes of breaking into the top four.

This has led to speculation that they may take the Europa League more seriously from now on, having fielded a number of weakened teams during the group stage.

Rodgers admitted that he is hoping to progress as far as possible in the competition, and that the game provides a welcome break from domestic football:

"We just have to keep striving and look towards the next game. We've got the Europa League game on Thursday night, which is a good opportunity for us to progress in a competition."

New signings Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho are both ineligible for the tie, due to representing their former clubs in Europe this season.

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