Jurgen Klopp vented his frustrations at Liverpool s capitulation against Manchester City, suggesting there was nothing good about their performance.
The Reds struck first at the Etihad Stadium through Mohamed Salah but subsequently fell to a 4-1 defeat against Pep Guardiola s champions in the Premier League.
Despite the absence of leading goalscorer Erling Haaland through injury, the hosts dismantled their visitors in ruthless fashion, with a trio of second-half goals doing the damage.
The nature of Liverpool s concessions after the break left their manager fuming at their display, ruing their inability to shut down their opponents throughout a crucial encounter.
We just had to follow as they did whatever they wanted, he told BT Sport. We were lucky they were not in a greedy mood. There is nothing good to say about this game.
This is a game we have to use, and make clear which things cannot happen [going forward]. We cannot not have challenges in key areas, or be that open.
5 – Liverpool have lost five of their 10 Premier League matches in 2023, already more defeats than in the whole of 2022 (P35 W24 D7 L4). Downturn.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe)
I stand here and have to explain it, but I cannot explain it. I cannot change it now, I can [only] report what I saw. We will talk about it tomorrow [but] these things happened too often.
Having gone into the interval all square following Julian Alvarez s equaliser, Kevin De Bruyne s finish less than a minute into the second half set the tone for Liverpool s collapse.
Further goals for Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish meant the Reds missed the chance to close the five-point gap to fifth-place Newcastle, who have a game in hand on them too.
Klopp was at a loss for their complete reversal, telling BBC Match of the Day: The first half was one we ve seen a few times. We played calm, composed and caused them problems.
But coming out after half-time and conceding two quick goals broke everything down. How we conceded is difficult to accept. [It is] absolutely not acceptable to be honest.
City [were] completely in control after that. We were open and they could do whatever they wanted. That they only scored one more goal, it could ve been different and that s really bad news for us.
