Klopp: Liverpool must start getting dirty defending

Jurgen Klopp was critical of Liverpool's slack defending after they slumped to a 2-0 defeat at West Ham on Saturday, demanding his players take responsibility at the back and get "dirty".

Klopp had seen his side claim 1-0 wins over Leicester City and Sunderland in their previous two games but the Merseyside club's upturn in form was brought to an end with a poor showing in east London.

Michail Antonio opened the scoring by heading past Simon Mignolet from Enner Valencia's cross in the 10th minute, and the Reds' misery was doubled in the 55th minute when Andy Carroll rose to power home West Ham's second.

Liverpool were left protesting that Alberto Moreno had been fouled at the other end prior to the opener but Klopp insisted that that could not be an excuse for defeat, imploring his players to work harder when out of possession.

"All of the TV stations have told me the situation with Alberto [Moreno] was a foul and it could have changed the situation around the first goal a little bit," the manager told reporters after the match.

"But we didn't react right to it because there was no whistle. We had to avoid the cross. There are crosses in the game, that's normal. It's football, defending is a part of football.

"I was a defender, I enjoyed it. It's a nice part of the game, you get dirty after, it's not a problem, you don't have to wash your clothes yourself. It's our responsibility [to defend].

"At 0-0, you play football and then you will have your chances. We didn't and that's our fault. I know how football works, we have to avoid the cross."

"We came back a little bit in the game in the first half and everybody saw when we start playing with a clear direction then we had our moments and made chances, but we didn't score

"In the second half, we started OK but out of nothing it was 2-0. Of course, West Ham had chances in the first half after set-plays, throw-ins, bad defending – we showed it [to the players] at half-time on TV.

"In each situation when we started playing fighting football, we had better moments but we scored no goals in this game."