Arne Slot admitted he did not see Liverpool’s alarming dip in form coming after they slipped to a fourth straight defeat.
The Reds’ Premier League title defence already appears in tatters after they were beaten 3-2 at Brentford thanks to goals from Dango Ouattara, Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago.
Milos Kerkez pulled one back and Mohamed Salah ended his recent goal drought, but the champions are still in the doldrums and could be seven points behind leaders Arsenal by the end of the weekend.
“Disappointing, again,” said Reds boss Slot. “I was hoping for and expecting a better performance. It was far from what we are used to. Even when we have been losing our performances were better than tonight.
“Teams seem have a certain playing style against us, which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven’t found an answer yet.
“You cannot even compete, which we don’t do at the moment – we don’t compete up there – because we simply concede too many goals.
“It definitely also has to do with if you change quite a lot during the summer, then I think it’s not a surprise that it can go a bit like this. But I didn’t expect it to go with four losses in a row, let that be clear.”
Slot was well aware of Brentford’s threat from long throws – he said it was all that they worked on in training on Friday – but Liverpool still could not handle them as they fell behind after only five minutes.
Michael Kayode’s delivery was nodded on by Kristoffer Ajer at the near post and Ouattara got ahead of Kerkez to hook the ball home.
The second goal arrived in the 45th minute, just moments after Cody Gakpo had a pretty strong case for a penalty turned down following a challenge from Nathan Collins.
Florian Wirtz lost the ball in midfield and Mikkel Damsgaard played the perfect defence-splitting pass to Schade, who showed Ibrahima Konate a clean pair of heels before finishing past Giorgi Mamardashvili.
However, Liverpool grabbed a lifeline in stoppage time when Conor Bradley’s cross was lashed home by fellow full-back Kerkez.
After the break, Virgil Van Dijk clipped Ouattara on the edge of the box and referee Tim Robinson gave a free-kick.
But a VAR check showed the contact was on the line, a penalty was awarded and Thiago did the rest.
Slot felt his side got the rough end of both penalty decisions. “It’s not an excuse but it’s a soft penalty to concede,” he said.
“And it is a crucial moment just before it was 2-0. You show the penalty and that moment, if I had to give one it would be to Cody.”
With two minutes remaining Salah grabbed his first goal in seven matches, a sweetly-struck finish after Ajer’s hesitation allowed Dominic Szoboszlai to get in a cross, but the equaliser would not come
The Bees, tipped to struggle this season after losing boss Thomas Frank and a host of star players, are now up to 10th after three wins in four.
“We took the game to then and that was the key for me,” said head coach Keith Andrews.
“The team is growing, clearly. I feel like we are getting different types of performances now. I felt we deserved it. I’m really happy with how things are going.”
