Liverpool have improved under manager Jurgen Klopp, midfielder Emre Can has told kicker.
When Klopp replaced Brendan Rodgers at Anfield in early October, Liverpool had picked up 12 points from eight games and sat 10th in the Premier League table.
Six months and 21 league games later, Liverpool have added 32 points to their tally and trail West Ham in the last Europa League spot by six points while having played 29 to the Hammers' 30 games.
"We still have to play one, two matches more than the teams ahead of us, we can still gain a few spots," Can replied when asked about the ninth place in Premier League. "Thus we have achieved something under Jurgen Klopp."
But the former Bayer Leverkusen player believes that "you should not only look at the standings" to see the improvements under Klopp, who is "one of the best managers in the world."
He said: "You should look at the football we have played in recent weeks. We've made a huge stop forward as a team and have put in good performances most of the time."
However, those performances which included a 3-2 defeat at Southampton after leading 2-0 at half-time have left the Reds with an uphill task of returning to Europe next season.
This, Can said, remains Liverpool's top priority in the final nine matches of the Premier League season.
"A berth in an international competition clearly has to remain our goal," he said. "Our problem is that we are just not consistent enough. We follow up two good matches with one bad match too often. We need to manage to be consistent for a longer period of time. This also applies to me."
Can, who came through the ranks of Bayern Munich's youth academy, believes that consistency will "automatically come with age and experience."
He said: "I also believe that it will be easier to digest matches as you get older. I am someone who sometimes mulls over matches which have been played for too long. It's good to think a bit, but stewing over it is not good. I need to learn that."
Next week, Liverpool travel to Dortmund to face Jurgen Klopp's old club Borussia in the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinals.
The Germans have so far enjoyed an impressive 2016, and have won all four of their Europa League knockout stage matches against Porto and Tottenham Hotspur.
They have also picked up three more points than Bayern in the domestic league in the second half of the season.
And Can believes that while "Dortmund are the slight favourites," Liverpool have a "50-50 chance" to come out on top. He added: "We have come so far in Europa League, we now want to win the competition."