Klopp: "We Lost Our Minds After the First Goal"

Liverpool put in another poor performance on Sunday, though this time the resut was a 3-0 loss away to Watford rather than a draw at home against West Brom.  Jurgen Klopp was not especially pleased with how his team performed on the day, though was quick to point out that there was so much more wrong with the Reds than any individual referee error that might have led to a goal.

"We lost our minds after the first goal, we lost our compact formation," Klopp said in his post-match interview, sarcastically describing the match as the most disappointing in his whole LFC career. "We should have played easy. The pitch was not the best, but you could play easy football on it. You could use the wind, as Watford did for the second goal. It was a bad first half. We never played easy. We have to change this. It is not the first time."

No, it's not. If there's one thing Klopp is good at, it's not getting too carried away after both excellent and poor results, and his feelings in Liverpool's inconsistency in either direction continue to be measured, if also slightly annoyed.

"After Southampton and Man City, everybody thought ‘wow'," Klopp continued, "but was one side of what we can do. We saw the complete other side today, and the things we have to work on. I know how strong this team can be. We saw in the Man City, Southampton, Chelsea performances. It's my job to help them show that much more often.

"It's not that bad. Today was bad, a very bad result. But I'm more disappointed in the reaction to the first goal. We have to work on that. The easy game, everybody wins. The difficult game, we have to win much more often than we have up until now. And if you stop asking, I can start working on that!"

In Klopp's defense, previous matches have indicated that Liverpool have worked on their confidence and attitude when it comes to the reaction after going down a goal. Today was not an example of that, but it's unfair to Klopp and his players to suggest there haven't been marked improvements in this area since mid-October.  Still, at the end of the day, a loss is a loss and further work needs to be done before Liverpool face the current league leaders on Boxing Day.

"We don't feel good today, of course," Klopp admitted. "We came here to do something really different from what you saw. Between what we wanted to do and what we did do, there was a big space and that is what we have to work on before the next game against Leicester. We have to accept the result, keep working and...well...play better football."