Jurgen Klopp admitted his Liverpool team "should have controlled the game better" as they came through a nervy match to beat Nottingham Forest 3-2 at Anfield.
The Reds were pegged back twice by the visitors as Neco Williams and Morgan Gibbs-White cancelled out a second-half brace from Diogo Jota before Mohamed Salah's 27th goal of the campaign won it for the hosts.
A tense second period saw Liverpool struggle to deal with the long throws of Forest, who also hit the bar through substitute Brennan Johnson - and while Klopp was pleased with the intelligent way his team crafted their goals via set-pieces, he admitted Liverpool could have made the result secure in a more calm manner.
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"Yes (Forest made us work hard for that)," Klopp said. "Especially when the ball was out. Then the game really started. Throw-ins created a proper mess for us. You can prepare for a lot in football and this game was now the preparation for the future. But for this kind of thing, obviously we were not prepared well enough because we knew about the threat. Niakhate has the ball and throws it into the box.
"The first ball we could have defended better I think. Ibou Konate was a bit too much in a fight with whoever was around him, but how he dealt with the second ball, the third ball and the fourth ball was actually not even close to being good enough because they won all of them and always put the ball back into an area. That in the end caused massive problems. I think especially the second goal they scored, we should have (cleared it).
"As a player who is not directly involved, you need to read the situation better. There is one who fights for the ball and all the rest have to pick up where the next potential threat is. That was not good enough. We scored our goals from set-pieces as well, different set-pieces.
"Strange game with a lot of possession for us. First half I think it was like 86% which is a really strange number. That makes life difficult so you have to be patient. I know for the people the first half is not a half where you think the football is a fantastic game.
"But it’s hard work and that’s what we had to do and the boys did that. Then scoring the first one is obviously very helpful. Then the lesson in throw-ins started then. They scored the first. The reaction was good, and it was good again what we did the second time. All the goals were super smart, good crosses, good finishes.
Klopp added: "We should have controlled the game a bit better. Actually, in most moments we controlled it but in the little moments they just needed a throw-in and everything ends in chaos again. That made life really difficult. We came through it and I’m happy, really happy because we showed a lot of things I wanted to see.
"It was a different game to the Leeds game because we needed to score to change their way and you need to keep the lead to change that. 1-0 up and you score a second one, that’s the moment a game changes. Apart from that there is no chance of the game changing at all. They sit deep, they wait for the chance. If the ball passes the sideline, then they will be dangerous."
Liverpool are now six points behind the top four ahead of Newcastle's visit from Tottenham on Sunday afternoon.
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