Jurgen Klopp has heavily criticised Liverpool’s performance – and particularly their defending – in Saturday’s 4-1 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Klopp said: “The key areas are clear. If you don’t control the double 6 you have a real problem if you don’t then control the double 10 – Gundogan, De Bruyne in between [the lines] – then it’s pretty much impossible to play because then the pitch becomes too big.

“So we conceded the first goal from an open ball in midfield I think where we didn’t even have a challenge. Then the ball outside we are too deep and then the counterattack happens. Great play.

“Then 2-1 directly after [half-time], then 3-1 where we have a massive overload on one side, should win the ball but don’t even have a challenge. So these types of things absolutely cannot happen, but they happened.

“And after that we were just open, like “wow!” They could do whatever they wanted and we just had to follow. We were lucky that they weren’t in the most greedy mood, actually. They scored the fourth one but then they were happy obviously kind of as well.

“Apart from that there’s nothing good to say about this game. This game we have to use, unfortunately, to make clear which things cannot happen.

“We cannot not have challenges in key areas. We cannot be that kind of open, it’s absolutely not possible, but it happened. And now I stand here and I have to explain it but I cannot explain it, I just can describe it.”