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Gini Wijnaldum says Liverpool have proved themselves against the best – but their season hinges on them beating the rest.

The Reds midfielder admits that Tuesday night’s gutsy 1-1 draw with leaders Chelsea at Anfield was a welcome step forward after the damaging setbacks of recent weeks.

It extended Liverpool’s impressive record against their rivals with Jurgen Klopp’s side having won three and drawn four of their matches against clubs in the top six this term.

The Reds’ three league defeats have come against modest opposition in Burnley, Bournemouth and Swansea.

Now lowly Hull City lie in wait at the KCOM Stadium on Saturday and Wijnaldum has warned that fourth placed Liverpool must replicate the intensity levels they showed against Chelsea.

“We have to continue the performance we showed,” he said.

“It was a good thing we did it against Chelsea but we’ve already done it against the big teams. We must now make sure we do it against the small teams. We’ve lost three games to those teams.

“I don’t look at the table now because we can’t control the performances from Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham and what they do. But we can control our own performance and at the end we will see where we will finish.

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“It was important to send a message but it is more important that we continue it.

“We showed it against Manchester City (on New Year’s Eve) but then in the next game (at Sunderland) we didn’t. It is important to carry on the way we did otherwise the Chelsea performance was for nothing.”

Liverpool won just once in nine games in January, taking just three points out of a possible 12.

But the Dutchman believes there were promising signs against Chelsea of Klopp’s men rediscovering the kind of fluency which had Kopites dreaming of title glory prior to the turn of the year.

“This is how we have to play,” he added.

“You can win, you can lose and you can’t always control how things go in the game, but you can control your performance and we did it well.

“It was good. The last time we performed like this was against Manchester City and we did it in the first half against Southampton at home.

“We played with aggression and passion and that is a good thing to go forward but we must ensure we do it in every game.

“If you do it one game and then not in the next it will cost you points. We saw in January that if you are not sharp, if you don’t play how we used to play, it will cost us points.”

Liverpool were caught napping by David Luiz’s quickly taken free-kick for the opening goal.

However, Wijnaldum’s header – his third goal of the season - deservedly restored parity after the break and the hosts were indebted to Simon Mignolet’s penalty save from Diego Costa.

Wijnaldum said: “I was standing on the other side and first I saw Willian had the ball and then David Luiz took it.

“It is something for us to be sharp at in moments like that because it can cost you a game.

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“I was happy to score. I’ve already told people I can score headers. I did it for Newcastle, PSV, Feyenoord.

“It was a little bit lucky as it went under him but a goal is a goal.

“It was in the right moment and it was a good goal to help the team to go forward and give confidence to the crowd.

“At the end I think it was more important when Simon saved the penalty that we didn’t lose it.”