Klopp gives a brutally honest verdict after Liverpool's 3-1 loss to Real Madrid

Jurgen Klopp reacted to Liverpool FC's 3-1 loss to Real Madrid in the 2020-21 Champions League's quarters, saying his side didn't "deserve" to win as they did not play good enough.

Vinicius Junior and Marco Asensio struck in the first half, putting the 13-time champions 2-0 at half-time. Mohamed Salah earned an away goal for Liverpool in the initial stages of the second half before Junior netted his second of the night to hand Real Madrid a 3-1 victory.

"First and foremost, and that's most important, I think we didn't deserve to win tonight. We didn't play good enough for that and that's maybe my first concern [and] what I think about. Especially in the first half, we didn't play good enough football. We pressed them kind of OK, they were under pressure, they had to shoot a lot of long balls without a proper target, we won these balls but we gave these balls pretty much with the second pass away again. That didn't help," Klopp was quoted by Liverpool's media, as saying in a post-match interview.

"A game is a summary of momentum if you want, and when we had this good momentum and we won the ball, we changed that immediately by giving the ball away. Football is a game where mistakes are completely normal, but you have to make the mistakes in the right spaces. If you do that, you can win the ball back by counter-pressing and stuff like this. But when you, in completely unexpected situations, pass the ball to the feet of the opponent, that's then tricky," added Klopp.

"It is obviously very difficult against a really passionate and deep-defending Real Madrid side with the counter-attacking threat they are. But we score our goal, which is obviously the positive – the positive – of the night and that's how it is. Did we deserve more than the 3-1? I'm not sure to be honest," Klopp further said in the same interview.

It was Liverpool's fourth consecutive loss to Real Madrid in the European tournament. Across all European competitions, no side has defeated Liverpool more often than Real Madrid (4, level with Benfica), according to Opta Joe.

Meanwhile, since Mohamed Salah made his debut for Liverpool in 2017, only Cristiano Ronaldo (140), Lionel Messi (156) and Robert Lewandowski (177) have scored more goals than the Egyptian (121) across all competitions within the top five European leagues.

The return leg of the quarter-final between Liverpool and Real Madrid is scheduled to take place at Anfield on Wednesday.