Jürgen Klopp watched his team climb to second in the table with a fourth successive Premier League victory at Swansea, but the Liverpool manager admitted he was “very angry” with his players during the interval after a poor opening 45 minutes. Leroy Fer put Swansea ahead early on and although goals from Roberto Firmino and James Milner turned the game around for Liverpool, Klopp said their first-half performance was unacceptable and “makes no sense”.

“We were not ready for this game,” the Liverpool manager said after the 2-1 win. “It’s my responsibility that we’re ready for games and today I saw that we weren’t. The body language was not good, the build-up was too static. Swansea did well, that’s important to say, but we were too static. We had no movement. We knew what they wanted to do, so we knew where the spaces are, but there was a misunderstanding. We were never compact enough for counter-pressing situations, that makes no sense.

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Asked how angry he was at half-time, Klopp replied: “Very. I said to the boys: ‘I am 49, so I have a lost a lot of football games and unfortunately I will lose a few [more].’ But today makes no sense, because it’s not a day where we should lose a football game, because we could have done so much better in the first half.

“It’s not allowed that we accept a bad day. Even on a bad day you have to fight against the start in this game, you have to strike back. You have to cool down. There were small things where you could see we lost patience with yourself and we interrupted the situation by moaning about decisions even if it was absolutely right.

“So we were angry at half-time but with ourselves, with nobody else,” Klopp added. “So we had to show we could do better because I said until now nobody can see why we are here. The second half was better. Still not brilliant but better. But it’s very important that on not brilliant performance days that we’re still able to win.”

Liverpool lost Adam Lallana to a groin injury in the first half and the midfielder will miss England’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovenia. “Adam felt [his groin], tried again but it didn’t work,” said Klopp, who revealed that Dejan Lovren suffered the same injury. “I think they both have no chance for their national teams. Hopefully 16 days should be enough to bring them back on the pitch for the next game [against Manchester United].”

Liverpool’s victory piles the pressure on Francesco Guidolin, whose side have now picked up only one point from the last six league games. Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, Swansea’s American owners, were in the directors’ box on a day when a large number of the home supporters chanted Guidolin’s name.

The Italian would not be drawn on his future and insisted that he is more concerned about the team’s predicament than his own future. “I don’t worry for my position but for our position in the table – it is not good,” the Swansea manager said.

Asked whether there would be further discussions with Huw Jenkins, the club’s chairman, and Swansea’s owners, Guidolin replied: “I don’t know if there will be a meeting in the next few days. It’s not my problem. My problem is to work with players and make them play, if possible, like the first half today. My job is to prepare for the next game [against] Arsenal.”