Football
Glenn Price, Liverpool correspondent 7y

Jurgen Klopp criticises Liverpool's defending in defeat to Swansea

LIVERPOOL -- Jurgen Klopp bemoaned Liverpool's defending during Saturday afternoon's shock 3-2 defeat to Swansea City at Anfield.

The Reds' first home defeat of the season sees them lose further ground in the title race, as Chelsea could go 10 points clear of Klopp's side if they beat Hull City on Sunday.

Liverpool went 2-0 down early in the second half through Fernando Llorente's goals before Roberto Firmino responded with a well-taken brace. However, Swansea recorded their first-ever league win at Anfield courtesy of Gylfi Sigurdsson's winner via a counter-attack in the 74th minute.

"[In the] first half, obviously you could hear in the stadium it was not the most entertaining game," the Liverpool manager told a news conference. "It was the job to do today.

"If you want to have a real spectacle on the pitch, you need two sides for it. In the first half, only we played, they defended. It's not that you can create in each second a chance, but we had these four or five really good moments when we did really well.

"That changes the game, of course. In this case, we couldn't score and came out of half-time and then obviously you need to be spot on immediately and in the first minutes one of the decisive [moments] was that they even got the corner.

"It was a throw-in and we were too late, then not concentrated in the situation, flick-on and corner. We lost the first challenge after the corner and, until now, I couldn't see how Llorente, who was the goal scorer, could be completely alone in the six-yard box and score the goal.

"Obviously it had an influence on us and them. Then they had their second chance in the game, we couldn't avoid the cross, ball in the air -- brilliant cross, brilliant header. That, I can easily accept.

"If something happens like this, I don't speak about the mistakes around the header. But we should have avoided the pass and then the cross. That should be possible.

"The reaction was then very good; 2-1, wonderful goal, 2-2, wonderful goal, big chances, chance after chance. Then we had the punch that we missed a little bit in the first half, not only when we scored the goals, also when we created the chances."

On Sigurdsson's winner, Klopp added: "Then the most disappointing moment, the third goal, nearly everything was wrong around this goal. I think it started with a long ball -- that was not a real surprise, they played a few of these. The reaction on the long ball was not good. We strode back, we were there and we scored, then we obviously couldn't switch in this moment to a defensive mood.

"That was the biggest mistake in this situation. We were passive. We win the ball and we could again create the next chance, but they took the opportunity and at the end Swansea players were in our box. We showed again that when we are really on track then we are a strong side and can create chances and score goals. That's natural, if you want, and will happen.

"But the defending around all three goals was not good enough, 100 percent. That's a very important part of the game. It's very disappointing today."

Meanwhile, Swansea City boss Paul Clement praised the resilience of his new side after suffering a heavy 4-0 loss to Arsenal last weekend.

The unlikely win over Liverpool sees the Swans, who started the game bottom of the Premier League, climb out of the relegation zone.

"I was particularly pleased with the defending in the first half, even when Liverpool had so much of the ball," Clement told a news conference. "It didn't look like they would cut through us.

"I think the mindset of the group has always been -- certainly since I've been here -- that anything is possible.

"Our main objective is -- and I've made this clear to our players -- that we're not going to look at the table about how many wins, points we need. Let's just focus on delivering some performances.

"Against Arsenal we delivered a 35-minute performance. Today we really played a 90-minute performance.

"We defended well, we took our opportunity at set plays and looked dangerous in counter-attacking situations. We performed over a 90-minute period."

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