Jurgen Klopp admits he has no answer for why Liverpool struggle against the perceived smaller sides in the Premier League after the Reds fell 2-0 to relegation candidates Hull.

Liverpool welcomed Sadio Mane back into the starting line p for the first time since losing him to the Africa Cup of Nations but even he couldn’t get the Reds to click back into the sort of form they were in when he left them.

The Anfield side are yet to record a Premier League win in 2017 and have dropped right off the pace in the title race, 13 points behind Chelsea now.

However, Klopp rejected that his side had an issue with their attitude, but conceded he did not know what was wrong.

“We have to take all the criticism from everywhere,” said Klopp when asked if he thought there was a flaw in his team’s attitude.

“I don’t think there is. I don’t want to give an answer now, but from outside, I can understand why you ask that if we have that record we have against those teams and another record against other teams.

“I know the boys, I see them every day and I don’t see this during the week but I understand how you could see it like this from outside.

“We expect more from ourselves and we have to show more than we did today and it’s my responsibility to make it possible for the players to show more than we showed today.”

Coutinho missed a golden opportunity to draw Liverpool level (Getty)

Klopp also said he was not even thinking about chasing down Chelsea and that if his team continue to perform as they did at the KCOM Stadium, then they can forget about Champions League football altogether.

Liverpool will drop out of the top four if Manchester City avoid defeat against Swansea on Sunday, and if United win away to Leicester they will only be one point behind.

“The title is not my biggest problem. I want to play much better football with my team,” Klopp added.

“But it’s not about talking about where we want to be. We have to show it. We have shown it a few times this season but obviously it is a long time since we showed it consistently.