Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has confessed that his side were fortunate not to be on the receiving end of a truly humiliating scoreline in Saturday’s defeat to Manchester City.
An early Mohamed Salah goal proved to be a false dawn for Liverpool, who watched on as Julian Alvarez, Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish scored in a dominant response to seal a 4-1 victory.
After the game, Klopp admitted his side were expertly dismantled, conceding Liverpool ‘may not even have won against ten men’.
He told BT Sport: “I think we saw a first half which you would expect. A dominant City side with us well organised, having our moments. We caused problems and scored a wonderful goal and had another big counter-attacking moment.
“So, 1-1 at half-time, it’s clear, you can show the boys what we have to do and where we have to defend them. We concede the first goal, an open ball in midfield where we don’t even have a challenge, then we are too deep and the counter-attack happens.
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“After that, 3-1, where we have a massive overload on one side. We should win the ball but don’t even have the challenge. These kinds of things cannot happen but they happened.
“After that, we were just open. Wow. They could whatever they wanted and we were lucky they weren’t in the most greedy mood. They scored a fourth one but then they were happy. Apart from that, there is nothing good to say about this game.
“It’s a game we have to use, unfortunately, to make clear which things cannot happen. We cannot no have challenges in key areas. We cannot be that kind of open. It’s not possible. But it happened. I have to explain it but I can’t. I can only describe it.”
The defeat – the first time Liverpool have lost three straight games in over two years – was their eighth away loss in the Premier League this season and their fifth at any venue in 2023, having lost just four across the entirety of 2022.
Klopp must now pick Liverpool up and prepare for a trip to Stamford Bridge to face fellow European outsiders Chelsea on Tuesday, seeking to avoid a fourth straight loss – something Liverpool have not experienced since November 2014.
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