Jurgen Klopp says Christian Benteke and the rest of the Liverpool forwards must be more clinical if the club's fortunes are to continue to improve in January.
Klopp has overseen successive 1-0 wins over Leicester City on Boxing Day and Sunderland on Wednesday, with Benteke beginning to show why the Reds paid £32.5 million for him by providing the winner on each occasion.
However, the recent sequence of results has produced only four goals in six matches since the 6-1 Capital One Cup rout of Southampton on Dec. 2.
With Divock Origi having joined fellow forwards Danny Ings and Daniel Sturridge on the injury list, Klopp knows he needs Benteke, as well as the likes of Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, to find the net more frequently.
Benteke remained short of his best in the win at Sunderland, missing chances including a late run through on goal when he placed the ball straight at goalkeeper Vito Mannone.
It came four days after he took too much time as he broke clear towards an open goal against Leicester, with Foxes goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel having ventured forward to try to force a late equaliser.
With his selection options still limited going into Saturday's Premier League match away to West Ham United, Klopp is putting his faith in Benteke to produce the goods.
"When I spoke to Christian after the game, he made the deciding goal in this and that's the best thing a striker can do," told a news conference. "But he can play better and that's [the case] for everybody.
"Christian was there again for the decisive moment and could have scored the second goal. Everybody saw and it's not usual that you have two situations like this in four days, so it's normal that you are not free at the moment when you think about it.
"It's too long to run [at goal] and you think about the last situation, so he tried to do something different. Last time left side and this time right side, both times the wrong side. But I think next time in a situation like this he will make this goal and score, so it's OK for him and it's OK for us."
Klopp said he had mixed feelings about grinding out low-scoring wins, with the manager pleased with the attitude shown but aware that his attacking players could have "made life easier" in making the points safe.
"First of all, you have to fight for the result and that's the biggest change in the last two games," said. "Until then, we won our really good games where we were really good but we were average when we lost. That's not how it should be if you want consistent results.
"We took these points, very important points, in a very difficult game [at Sunderland]. That's very important. We defended well and we had opportunities.
"You can always make your life easier in games like this when you take one of your first opportunities. I think the biggest opportunity for us came when Phil played a pass to Roberto in the box and he couldn't save the ball.
"It was one touch and the second touch was with the knee. If he could control this ball it was a big, big chance and you can make an early goal in this game.
"For us it could make life easier but if you don't do this you have to work, defend and to switch [the play], speed up, slow down -- all the things for the special moment [when you score]. So it's very important in games like this that you win. It's important for us that we don't wait for the perfect day but that we work for the perfect day.
"If you always are prepared for a difficult game, sometimes you will find an easy game. But if you are always waiting for the easy game, you will never find it. That's an old football rule and [at Sunderland] we worked again for it."