Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has urged his players to be willing to take any criticism in the wake of their recent 2-0 defeat at the hands of Hull City.
Afred N’Diaye and Iumar Niasse scored for the Tigers as they handed the Reds their second defeat in their league three games.
Liverpool are now 13 points behind league leaders Chelsea, and could drop out of the top four if Manchester City can beat Swansea City on Sunday.
However, Klopp has admitted that the fight for the Champions League qualifying spot is intense, but his team can achieve it with a little consistency.
“We need to show much more consistency,” he told a news conference. “The Champions League is an outstanding, big, big, big target – so many teams want to play there.”
“To qualify for the Champions League in England is difficult because there are so many challengers, but on the performance of today we don’t have to talk about this. We have to show now that we work, that we are really ready to go for everything.”
“I can say it here, but it will not change a lot. We have to show it together. In a few days we have another opportunity to play and we need to show we are ready for all the other games.”
“Even if we had won 2-1, I’d still be upset with the first half. I’m interested in the results. I’m interested in the performance because you can build on that. We will have to take all the criticism from everywhere. You can write what you want at the moment.”
Klopp also said that although his team did show some improvements, it was “difficult to accept” that they let Hull score.
“I want to play much better football with my team,” Klopp said. “It’s not about where you want to be, you have to show what you should reach in a season.”
“We showed a few times, but obviously long ago we showed consistency and that’s what we need to change immediately.”
“We gave easy goals away. We didn’t play the first half as we should have played, especially when you saw the second half. You think if you played from the beginning like this with the direction, speed, kind of greed and all that stuff then I think it would have been really difficult.”
“Football under pressure is difficult because it’s allowed to defend with a lot of legs in the box. They’re not only a defending team, they play football and they are able to.”
“There are spaces when you win the ball. We had these few moments but we were obviously not, especially in the first half, in the right mood. That’s difficult to accept.”