Liverpool boss Matt Beard has admitted his players were "outfought, outworked and outrun" in Saturday's 4-0 defeat to Leicester City.
The Reds were four games unbeaten heading into the clash at the King Power Stadium, however Leicester - who had started the day at the bottom of the Women's Super League table - took the lead just 15 minutes into the contest thanks to Josie Green's deflected strike. Carrie Jones' long-range effort soon made it two, before goals from Ashleigh Plumptre and Missy Goodwin compounded Liverpool's misery in the second half.
The result means Liverpool remain seventh in the table, eight points above the drop zone with four games still to play. But while Saturday's drubbing in the East Midlands is unlikely to impact the Reds' top flight survival, Beard admitted he was "desperately disappointed" with his side's performance.
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"I didn’t see it or expect it to come," he said. "We got outfought, we got outworked, we got outrun. We didn't do the basics well enough.
"I'm big enough to take responsibility for performances, but the players have to take responsibility for today, to be blunt and honest. The basics of our game were poor from start to finish and you can’t do that at any level of football, let alone in the Women’s Super League.
"Especially we’ve been on a good run and have been doing so well, that’s the biggest frustration for me. I know we’ve had injuries and we’ve lost players but attitude and application doesn’t cost anything.
"I can’t put my finger on it. I’m just desperately disappointed and I'm disappointed for the fans who’ve come to support us today because in any walk of life we shouldn’t be putting in performances like that."
Defeat to Leicester means Liverpool are still searching for their first away win of the season. The Reds have lost five and drawn four of their nine games on the road this term - something which Beard concedes needs to improve going forwards.
"It’s frustrating for us," he said. "We’d spoken about slowing the game down, getting [Leicester] frustrated because they'd be be flying out of the traps.
"They were fighting for their lives, you could see that. We looked like we were on a beach. [Our away form] is something we need to address for sure. There have been games where I’ve thought we could get the three points but it just hasn’t happened for us so far."
Liverpol must now regroup ahead of a tricky end to the season. The Reds will take on three of the top four, as well as fifth-placed Aston Villa, and Beard has expressed a desire to rally his players ahead of a decisive few weeks.
"We’ve been on a great run," he said. "It’s not easy to go four games unbeaten in this league. We need to regroup. We need to look at and discuss why what happened happened [on Saturday]
"You can’t have players not putting tackles in, you can’t have players not getting back into position, you can’t have players not breaking when we break. I need to watch it back because in the moment it was frustrating. It actually feels worse than the [6-0] Manchester United defeat to be honest, and that was a painful afternoon."
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