Jurgen Klopp has said Liverpool “have to do better” after they were beaten 2-0 by Red Star Belgrade in Serbia on Tuesday night.
Liverpool missed out on the chance to move within touching distance of qualification from Group C as two first-half goals from Milan Pavkov saw Red Star record a historic victory — their first in the Champions League since 1992.
It was Liverpool’s third successive Champions League away defeat — the club’s worst run in 39 years — and Klopp’s side will travel to Paris Saint-Germain later this month before hosting Napoli at Anfield on Dec. 11 in the final round of group matches.
“Look, I’m a human being and if I would be, 10 minutes after the game, here and have a big speech then I would think I’m a bit silly. It’s not what we wanted,” Klopp told BT Sport. “We will go for the other games, 100 percent. But I have no message at the moment. We all have to deal with it.
“It was a game we lost and that happened not 20 times so far. We feel it, really. The boys are very disappointed, I’m very disappointed. We have to do better, we have to do better. Because we can do better.
“Tonight, it’s too late. We have a long flight home and have enough time to think about it.
“Sunday, Fulham is waiting. They saw the game tonight probably and will think: ‘OK, this team has weaknesses.’ We have to make sure we don’t have them on Sunday.”
Pavkov broke the deadlock with a header from a corner in the 22nd minute, before doubling the hosts’ lead from long range seven minutes later.
Klopp responded at half-time by introducing Roberto Firmino and Joe Gomez, although Liverpool still failed to break through a resolute opponent.
“They had too many set-pieces — that’s true,” the Liverpool manager continued. “One of them, they scored and the block worked [on] Virgil in that area. So they could score that one and, out of the blue more or less, they scored the second one.
“Of course the atmosphere was really different and you could feel it. They were, if you want, on their bikes and we had to deal with the situation.
“At half-time, we tried to change a few things and did that. The second half was really dominant, but we didn’t score. [There were] a lot of balls which don’t count as a shot on target because we missed the target.
“It’s hypothetical, but if we score with one of them then the game can change. We didn’t and so they stayed completely comfortable and were fighting really hard. So they deserved the three points. That’s what we have to admit.”