Trent Alexander-Arnold has admitted that he and his Liverpool team-mates needed to look at themselves after the stuttering start to their Premier League and Champions League campaigns.
Two points from their opening three games of the season - where drab draws against Fulham and Crystal Palace were followed by a dismal defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford - represented the club's worst start to a Premier League season since August 2012.
Having suffered injuries to Thiago Alcantara, Joel Matip and Ibrahima Konate, Liverpool were put to the sword by Erik ten Hag's side last month, as they bounced back from their embarrassing 4-0 thrashing to Brentford with a 2-1 victory over the Reds.
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For Liverpool, despite the defeat, it was the manner of the Reds' early season downfalls that made for the most alarming cause for concern as mistakes from Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Jordan Henderson had them looking like a team still fatigued from their 63-game exertion in the previous season.
But it wasn't just domestically that Jurgen Klopp's side continued to falter. A 4-1 defeat to Napoli at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium condemned the Reds to their worst European defeat since December 1966 and during that particular outing in Naples, Alexander-Arnold caught plenty of flack for his display.
Yet following a promising 2-1 victory over Ajax at Anfield last week, in the last game before the international break, the defender believes it is only now that he is getting up to speed in the new campaign.
"I think I'm getting there, personally," the 23-year-old told Red Bull. "It's hard because it's been different to how other seasons start, because normally you'll have like three or four games in August, at the weekends, and then it'll be internationals, then they'll start to introduce the Champions League, then it'll be another international.
"I always see the first part of the season as like three little blocks of four weeks with the internationals breaking them up, and each time you'll play a little bit more football. Whereas now it's like from the get-go you're in at the deep end."
And much like Klopp had alluded to in the build-up to Liverpool's fixture against the Dutch champions, the defender revealed that plenty of home truths had been exchanged in the AXA Training Centre in the days following the dismal thrashing by Luciano Spalletti's side.
"The manager speaks directly after the game and then we have a meeting the following day as well for five minutes or so, and the manager will speak again about the game when he's had a bit more time to process it, and it's not just acting on emotion," added the Liverpool right-back.
"That [Manchester United] game was probably the big, bad game we had early on in the season, which was rough. I would say the result felt right because it's what we deserved, but in terms of how we played we didn't feel right on the pitch.
"It wasn't natural, it didn't happen for us, we really needed to look at ourselves after that. It was a humbling one.
"We've had meetings, and the emphasis in training has been on our system and how we need to play, where we need to be, the movement of the ball, becoming compact, defending well.
"It was back to the drawing board after Napoli, and making sure that we need to start getting our stuff in order."
Having not played a Premier League game since the 0-0 draw with Everton on September 2, due to the passing of Her Majesty the Queen and the subsequent cancellation of fixtures against Wolves and Chelsea for differing reasons, Liverpool are back in action against Brighton at Anfield on Saturday, October 1.
Klopp's side face a jam-packed October schedule with the countdown to the World Cup in Qatar well and truly on upon the return from the break. As it stands, the Reds will play twelve games between October 1 and November 12, leaving little room for sloppy, mistake-littered performances like those that have been on display during the opening weeks of the campaign.
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