But at times there was enough promise in this performance to suggest Manchester may not be the inevitable destination of the title again, 12 months after Leicester’s surprise title tilt.
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp admits his side have to prove they can consistently play the sort of football which saw Premier League champions Leicester beaten 4-1 at Anfield.
Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri conceded his team were second best. “We just take it game by game and will try to win them”.
“We have to clean our minds”.
Danny Drinkwater surveyed the ruins on the road to Europe and promised: “We won’t dwell on this”.
“But we won’t dwell on this – the gaffer will make sure of that”. It would be really nice if you could stop please!
“We had momentum but we couldn’t capitalise on the header from Huthy (Robert Huth)”.
While this season was always going to fall short against the heroics of 2015-16, just four points after four games might leave Ranieri a little disappointed.
“I wanted to say this, because (at the time) nobody could understand me”. He shouldn’t be too disheartened though, as he takes his side to Bruges on Wednesday night to begin their Champions League adventure.
Roberto Firmino opened and closed the scoring, with Sadio Mane enhancing his reputation as one of the buys of the summer with Liverpool’s second and Lallana himself scoring the important third.
But Leicester were given hope when Lucas inexplicably passed the ball to Jamie Vardy to shoot into an empty net. “They’re a good side”.
Liverpool comprehensively outplayed Leicester City with their crisp passes and movement.
“We had to throw him in cold water, he wasn’t really ready for 90 minutes”, he said.
While Leicester pressed manfully, they struggled to construct a coherent attacking threat and the hosts restored their two-goal advantage in the 56th minute when Lallana met Giorgino Wijnaldum’s lay-off and rifled a fine shot into the top corner.
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He said that he didn’t think that Liverpool’s performance was their “best game” but insisted that they “deserved to win” because they “created many chances” and “could have scored two or three more goals”. Everything they tried to do was okay and they were inspired.
