Jurgen Klopp has revealed he did not tear a strip off his Liverpool players as he highlighted what went wrong at Watford.
The Reds were beaten in the Premier League for the first time since January when they were thumped 3-0 at the struggling Hornets on Saturday evening.
It ended a – game unbeaten league run and prevented them from registering an English record th successive top flight win.
And with Liverpool remaining points clear at the summit, Klopp chose not to lambast his players after an uncharacteristically poor performance.
“We criticize the pl ayers all the time, after the United game, City, Leicester, ”said the Reds boss.
“ Criticism isn’t somebody telling you it was silly to play football, criticism is to tell people what they have done wrong. That’s what we do constantly and we will not change that now.
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“We win a game and afterwards the boys get a five-minute summary of what I have in my mind after the game. Everybody can then leave the dressing room straight because I’m not shouting at them or stuff like this.
“I didn’t do it today, I didn ‘ t do it after other games.
“But criticism happens all the time. We never stop being critical about ourselves. ”
Klopp admitted he thought Liverpool had taken on the message they were given at half-time with an improved showing immediately after the break before being undone by three goals in minutes in which they were their own worst enemy.
“I’m not surprised by the performance because that would say I’ve not seen something like that before and I have,” he said. “I would say 3-0 is a bit harsh but we had a big hand in that.
” The most important thing is congratulations to Watford, well deserved. That should be the headline.
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“We didn’t perform as we should have. Watford performed exactly as they would have wanted.
“Little football things did not work out for us, where we wanted to pass, where we wanted to run, things we usually do naturally right we did do. That makes an already tense game not easy, the opponent wasn’t easy anyway and then we really feel it. ”
Klopp added:“ We spoke about it at half-time and I really liked the reaction at the start of the second half. We mixed things up on the wings a little bit more.
“But then we conceded the first goal and then soon after the second. The first one Troy uses his body and we can’t defend it, second one, we lost the ball, the passed it and (Ismaila) Sarr was on his bike, and the third one we pretty much gave away but it was still a good finish from Troy Deeney.
“We did not have enough chances, we did not create enough, and that’s what leads to a defeat.
“It had nothing to do with the games we won before or the games we will win. It’s this one game and tonight we have to admit Watford were the better team. ”
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