Jurgen Klopp: Liverpool manager said only three words to his players after West Ham defeat

The former Borussia Dortmund coach was visibly angered by his side's performance in his post-match press conference

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp (Getty Images)

Jurgen Klopp only said three words to his Liverpool players after their defeat to West Ham United on Saturday, such was his frustration with their poor performance at Upton Park.

Michail Antonio and Andy Carroll headed home on either side of half-time to earn Slaven Bilic’s team a deserved 2-0 win, but it was the manner of the defeat which most annoyed the German coach.

Although Liverpool left-back Alberto Moreno appeared to be brought down illegally in the build-up to their opponents’ first goal, Klopp played down the importance of the foul, and insisted his players should have reacted better to the setback.

“I only told the players three words after the game,” said the Liverpool boss. “But we have to speak about it again, because it was not the worst game I ever saw in my life.”

“The problem was that I saw what we could have reached, yet we got nothing. You can talk about good crosses or West Ham hitting the post, or bad defending by ourselves.

“But for the rest of the game we had the ball, we passed it, we were around the box and we didn’t shoot or pass in the right moment, we did not have consistency in our crosses and things like this. We could have won today, and we lost 2-0. That’s really not good.”

Klopp was also asked about the criticism of striker Christian Benteke, with reference to Michael Owen’s comments regarding the lack of ‘top players’ within Liverpool’s squad.

“It’s not the game to pick one player out and talk about this,” Klopp responded.

“I have no idea what he [Owen] spoke about, but take this from me – we could not do what we should have done at very precise moments, and that’s why we lost.”

Antonio’s early goal made West Ham the fourth team to score past Klopp’s Liverpool in the opening 10 minutes, after Watford, Chelsea and Southampton.

The former Borussia Dortmund coach agreed that this was a worrying trend and blamed a lack of concentration among his players.

“We have spoken three times more about this, and it is not good,” he said.

“We had the situation where we kicked off, and West Ham played the first ball very easy into Andy Carroll, as you would expect.

“Then we are under pressure, and we are trying to pass balls on the half-volley, on the chest and in the air, and you think ‘what are they doing?!’

“You cannot control balls like this, but that’s how it was. I’m not lucky with this!”