Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp has admitted that his side struggled to find their rhythm for long stages of Sunday's Premier League clash with Crystal Palace.

The Reds entered the contest looking to bounce back from their 3-0 home defeat to Atalanta BC in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final on Thursday night.

However, an early goal from Eberechi Eze decided the contest at Anfield, with Palace recording a famous victory and denting Liverpool's Premier League title hopes in the process.

The Merseyside outfit have now picked up just one point from their last two league matches, and they are third in the table, two points behind the leaders Manchester City.

Klopp admitted that "it wasn't a fully convinced team on the pitch", but he still believes that his side had enough opportunities to comfortably triumph against the capital outfit.

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"The stats in the first half won't be as great as the stats in the second half. I think that was pretty obvious we didn't play a good first half. We wanted a reaction and we saw a reaction," he told BBC Sport.

"It wasn't a fully convinced team on the pitch. It's a really difficult one. We weren't great. Crystal Palace had far too many football moments where we ran in the wrong direction.

"In more than 20 years when you watch my teams, the press and counter press is pretty good, some days it is outstanding. In the first half, it was nothing and then we were 1-0 down.

"Second half, we tried to change the formation and dynamic that wasn't tricky for Crystal Palace. You could stand here on another day and see the same balls go in and we're talking about a 4-1 win, but football doesn't work like that.

"I would say with the chances we had, we were really unlucky. What could Darwin do with his chance or Mo. Good defending from Mitchell. In the second half, Crystal Palace were lucky we didn't punish them but that's why we are stood here with no points and Crystal Palace have three."

Klopp rues missed opportunities against Palace

Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Sky Sports News, Klopp said: "I am standing here and to talk about this game is really tricky. Two different games I would say, with the first half and second half.

"First half was absolutely not good enough so we showed a reaction. The reaction was we lost conviction from the last game. We tried to get rid of this but that work out as much as we wanted.

"To concede that goal was a horrible goal to concede with a completely free player in the area. That cannot happen but it happens. Andy Robertson gets the other ball so it's like scoring a goal if you don't concede from that.

"Crystal Palace didn't have many more and we controlled it better and then second half we can easily say if we don't score with these chances what can you say?

"The game in the second half was much better, Trent coming on and in the moment the structure changed. We caused problems and we had big big chances. If we stand here and win the game 4-1 we could have seen the same game with a completely different result. But we didn't so we have to take that."

Liverpool will head to Italy next week looking to overturn a 3-0 deficit in their Europa League quarter-final with Atalanta before visiting Fulham in the Premier League next weekend.