Andoni Iraola has shifted the focus on to Liverpool’s forwards for the team’s uninspiring display against Fulham, insisting they need to give more to make his system work.

The head coach admitted his team took “a step backwards” with their goalless draw on Saturday. His central midfield pairing of Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai struggled to contain their Fulham counterparts, winning two of five duels and one of nine duels respectively. But Iraola believes the problems started further forward with the pressing of Liverpool’s expensively assembled attack.

“It’s not a matter of just the midfielders,” he said. “When we have been good collectively the midfielders have looked a lot better and recovered more balls. It’s not because they are winning duels that they play better, it’s because we are helping them more to win the duels.

“If the ones up front do their job very well then the defenders and midfielders look good. If we are allowing them to defend one-v-one all the time and we are not aggressive, then our defenders will also struggle. If the players ahead of you are doing their job then you look a better midfielder or defender because you win more easier duels, you have more chance of winning one. It is more collective.

“It isn’t about changing this player for that player. That’s the help we have to give to our defenders and midfielders so everyone looks better, looks smarter and are in better positions.”

Iraola is unlikely to field the same frontline of Alexander Isak, Bradley Barcola, Florian Wirtz and Víctor Muñoz when Tottenham visit in the Carabao Cup third round on Tuesday. Trey Nyoni is pressing for a start in midfield and Iraola confirmed Georgi Mamardashvili, whom he tried to sign for Bournemouth, would replace Alisson in goal.

On the issues of Saturday, which contributed to a third draw in four Premier League games, he also said: “Compared to previous games, we won the ball a lot lower in the pitch. We don’t concede a lot, and the only big chance we conceded was our goal-kick that we messed up. But we were recovering the ball always very low and when that happens you have to attack against 11 players and that makes it more difficult to make the difference.

“In previous games we could win it a lot higher and use our quick transitions to attack against less players and use the space better. That is key to our system. We need to recover the ball as high as possible because it makes the offensive side a lot easier, and we have more situations to attack in one-v-one.”