Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp claimed it was "tough to accept" his side's defending the Reds fell to a fourth-round FA Cup exit at the hands of Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday afternoon.
Liverpool initially looked to be on their way to the fifth round having taken the lead through Harvey Elliott. Their lead lasted just nine minutes though with Lewis Dunk equalising for Brighton as he deflected Tariq Lamptey's effort from range home.
The Reds would then be condemned to their second defeat in three weeks at the AMEX Stadium as Kaoru Mitoma turned home a brilliant solo effort in stoppage time. Whilst recognising his side were much better than in the embarrassing defeat to the Seagulls a matter of weeks ago, Klopp was highly critical of the way his side defended during the clash - a big contributor to their elimination.
As quoted by beIN SPORTS, the German said: "It was obviously a completely different game to the last one that we played here and I won’t get compliments from my colleague. But obviously, we didn’t come here to play a little bit better but we did definitely and we wanted to go through and that didn’t happen.
"And if you can’t go through, you want to have another game and it didn’t happen because of the late goal. The game was obviously completely different to the one we played a couple of weeks ago here.
"It was much more complicated for Brighton, we had more of our own situations, scored a wonderful goal. Good situations first half. Again, gave too many easy balls away where they can take counter-attacks. They were actually in the first half the best situations that they had when we gave them the ball unnecessarily.
What went wrong for Liverpool in their FA Cup defeat to Brighton? Share your thoughts in the comments below
"And then they score two goals from set pieces which is so tough to accept. They did it and so we don’t go this year to the next round."
The Liverpool boss continued to publicly criticise his side for the way they approached set-piece situations throughout the game and claimed that they have to be better both defensively and in attack. He continued: "I general, I think we can do much better.
"It’s not that we played a sensational game and got knocked out but it was better than whatever couple of weeks ago here. Much better against a really good side, we cannot forget that. That’s how it is. You have to work through that. You have to use your own chances around set pieces.
"I know you are there for those periods where you concede more than you should but it’s actually the easiest to defend as well. Not for us now today. We have to be much better in these departments. It just feels like the disappointment is really big because we concede this late goal and that’s really tough. We cannot change it anymore so we go from here."
Klopp will be racking his brain on how he will be attempting to get the Reds back on track. One suggestion put forward to him was further signings.
However, the German does not believe that there will be any further additions over the final two days of the window. Asked if more signings could arrive, he replied: "No, nothing will happen in this transfer window. That’s all good."
