Jurgen Klopp: Liverpool lucky not to concede more than four against Man City | Football News

Jurgen Klopp bemoaned Liverpool’s “passive” performance as they were thrashed 4-1 by Manchester City and said his side were fortunate not to concede more goals.

Liverpool took an early lead through Mohamed Salah at the Etihad Stadium but Julian Alvarez’s goal pegged them back at half-time and City were rampant after the break as the visitors fell apart.

Kevin De Bruyne scored inside a minute of the restart and further goals from Jack Grealish and Ilkay Gundogan sealed an emphatic win for Pep Guardiola’s title-chasing side which leaves the Reds facing an uphill battle to secure a top-four finish.

“Everyone could see the first half was OK, not only the result,” Klopp said.

“City had more possession but that always happens when we play here and we scored a wonderful goal, could have scored a second one in a really good counter-attack.

“Then, I would say this situation was rather unlucky, Kevin De Bruyne gets a touch, it rolls through Robbo’s legs and then 1-1.

“You come out of half-time, a ball in midfield, not even a challenge, we are too deep. If you are too deep, too passive, they use that so that is 2-1.

“Then 3-1 super quick, after we have three or four one-on-one situations and we don’t make a challenge and you saw what happened, we were not there, anyone, too passive, too open, too deep, too far away from anything.

“Four performances were okay, the two midfielders, Hendo [Jordan Henderson] and Fab [Fabinho], worked a lot, Cody [Gakpo] and Ali [Alisson] and that is very difficult.

“If you want to get something here, 14 or 15 players have to be on top of their game and that was not the case.

“We had a situation for 3-2 when Robbo broke through but apart from that City could do what they wanted because the spaces were too big so we were lucky they only scored one more.”

Speaking in his post-match interview with BT Sport, Klopp added: “There is nothing good to say about this game.

“It’s a game we have to use, unfortunately, to make clear which things cannot happen. We cannot no have challenges in key areas. We cannot be that kind of open. It’s not possible. But it happened.

“I have to explain it but I can’t. I can only describe it.”