Jürgen Klopp said Liverpool felt “really bad” after their Premier League title aspirations were damaged by a shock 3-2 defeat at home to relegation-threatened Swansea City.
Liverpool missed the chance to close the gap on the leaders, Chelsea, to four points as they were beaten in the league at Anfield for the first time in more than 12 months. Fernando Llorente gave Paul Clement’s team a two-goal lead early in the second half and, though Roberto Firmino scored twice to bring Liverpool level, Gylfi Sigurdsson capitalised on poor defending to give Swansea their first league win at Anfield.
Klopp’s team will fall 10 points behind Chelsea should Antonio Conte’s side beat Hull City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
“Damaged? That’s a pretty harsh word,” said the Liverpool manager on the implications for his team’s title hopes. “It has an influence, yes, it has to be like this. It has to feel really bad and it does. I don’t need this feeling but we have to use it and show a reaction
“It is not like we believed everything was going well. We knew we had to fight for everything and it is clear if you get it back to 2-2 who is on the run-in, so it was really hard when we conceded the third. But it was only our mistake, no one else..
“We had attack after attack, we were rolling and the crowd were finally there. At 2-2 the atmosphere was for a Liverpool win. We had enough players around for the challenges but I saw no challenges [for Sigurdsson’s winner]. We were too passive and in the end there is a free player in our box. A big mistake. That this is possible against us is really disappointing.”
Klopp bemoaned Liverpool’s failure to take a first-half lead, with Emre Can and Adam Lallana missing decent chances before Llorente struck in the 48th and 53rd minutes. Firmino’s double set the stage for what appeared a crucial Liverpool comeback, only for
Tom Carroll, Swansea’s new signing from Tottenham, to breeze through the home defence before Sigurdsson scored the goal that proved decisive with 16 minutes left.
“Nearly everything around this goal was wrong,” Klopp said. “It started with a long ball, which should not have been a surprise as they played many of them. Our reaction was not good, we strolled back, we had just scored to make it 2-2 and we couldn’t switch back into a defensive mode. We were too passive. The defending for all three goals was not good enough. It was a big opportunity to take three points and we gave them the opportunity to win the game. They were deserved winners.”