Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool must “go back to basics” after they were thumped 3-0 by Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday.
A Solly March double and a sublime Danny Welbeck strike condemned Liverpool to a sixth Premier League defeat of the season, with Klopp conceding afterwards that he was “very concerned”.
The result left Liverpool ninth in the table, 10 points adrift of the top four having run Manchester City to within a point of the title last season.
The defensive performance at the Amex Stadium was particularly worrying, with Brighton holding 61.9 per cent of the possession and recording 16 shots at Alisson’s goal.
Klopp acknowledged Liverpool needed to improve at the back ahead of his side’s FA Cup third-round replay at Molineux on Tuesday, following the teams’ 2-2 draw at Anfield on January 7.
“These are football problems, and you solve them with football,” Klopp said. “To play better football than we did at Brighton should not be that difficult.
“We have to be compact, we have to defend. The pitch looks too big when we are defending.
“You always go back to basics. From there, you can make steps. All the success in football starts with solid defending, and that’s what we have to do again.
“We have a lot of things to consider, we have two senior strikers available. We have to find solutions, that’s what we do pretty much every day.”
While this season has not gone to plan for Liverpool, they have the opportunity against Wolves to get their name into the hat for the FA Cup fourth round, as they bid to retain the trophy after beating Chelsea on penalties in last season’s final.
They also have a chance to get revenge on Real Madrid for their 2021-22 Champions League final defeat with the teams set to meet in the round of 16.
Despite the poor first half of the campaign, Klopp does not feel Liverpool need a total rebuild, saying: “Too often this season, we didn’t play to our potential. That’s the truth.
“We had games that we played really well, but not often enough to be successful.
“We don’t want to turn time back, we don’t want to start at nil. It’s not nil, but we have to start again.
“The good thing about a long career is that it’s not the first time I’ve had a situation like this.”
