Roy Keane has admitted Manchester United are pinning their hopes on a Champions League triumph as they bid to stave off successive seasons without a trophy.

In the aftermath of Sunday's 2-0 League Cup final defeat by Liverpool, Keane hinted he felt the club's Premiership title hopes had also been dealt a shattering blow by Arsenal's home win over Charlton.

The Gunners' victory took them eight points clear of United, who have the chance to haul their championship rivals back when they entertain Leeds tomorrow night.

However, with only nine games remaining, Arsene Wenger's men must lose twice on the run-in to open the door for United, who would then need to win all their remaining games to snatch the championship trophy.

With visits to Highbury and Newcastle, plus an Old Trafford encounter against Liverpool to come in a 10-day spell in April, maximum points for the remainder of the campaign looks an unlikely prospect. Keane certainly appeared to think so as he came to terms with the third League Cup final defeat of his illustrious career.

"We have to get ourselves together now and try to put some pressure on Arsenal by beating Leeds," said the 31-year-old Corkman. "But we are eight points behind them, which puts them in a very strong position and again we are pinning our hopes on the European Cup, which is a dangerous game to play as we saw last season.

Both Keane and manager Alex Ferguson have described going successive seasons without winning a trophy as "unthinkable", yet Sunday's defeat, coupled with Arsenal's growing Premiership lead has made the prospect an uncomfortable reality.

If they are unable to drag Arsenal back, United will have to maintain their impressive recent form in the Champions League in order to overcome the likes of AC Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Juventus, all of whom are likely to advance with them into the last eight of the competition.

The added legacy of an unhappy afternoon were the hamstring and knee injuries picked up by Wes Brown and Mikael Silvestre respectively, which makes them doubtful for the Leeds encounter.

Sunday's match was the sixth time in seven games United found themselves in the wrong end of a Liverpool victory. Keane admitted Steven Gerrard's opener had been what Liverpool were looking for.

"Liverpool made it hard for us to penetrate their defence and once they got the first goal it gave them something to hold onto," he said. "They had a game plan and if you look at the final scoreline I suppose it worked to perfection."

Jerzy Dudek was the main contributor to the final outcome, the Liverpool goalkeeper atoning for his miserable performance in the Anfield meeting between the teams in December.

"Once the keeper starts making saves you can feel it slipping away," admitted Keane. "We know Liverpool are quite good at holding leads and would try to hit us on the break, especially with the potential of (Michael) Owen up front, so it wasn't a surprise."

Keane admitted the pain inside the United dressing-room probably would not be as keenly felt as that of the fans, who were taunted mercilessly by their north-west rivals.

"There is no doubt they will be hurting, we are as well because we wanted to get some silverware but there is nothing we can do about it now. You never know, I suppose this defeat might spur us on but we will only know that when we look back in two or three months' time and see whether we have won anything."