Jurgen Klopp acknowledged Liverpool were far from their best as they were beaten 3-1 by Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday.

The Reds suffered just a second top-flight defeat of the season at Emirates Stadium – and the boss conceded his team could have few complaints about the outcome.

Bukayo Saka put the Gunners ahead early on; however, Gabriel Magalhaes’ own goal sent the teams in level at the interval. Liverpool were improved after the break, but fell behind once more when Gabriel Martinelli capitalised on a defensive mix-up to roll in Arsenal’s second.

Ibrahima Konate was sent off for a second booking as the contest edged towards its conclusion and Leandro Trossard grabbed a third for the hosts in stoppage time.

“Right from the start it didn’t really look like our day but maybe we could have turned it into our day – second half, the start was really good. Again, it is just proof, evidence, whatever you want, what momentum makes,” said Klopp.

“First half, Arsenal started well, that’s clear. We didn’t play enough football, we needed to get used a little bit to each other, like the right-side triangle – [it was] tricky to find, let me say it like that. From the start, always when Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] and Curtis [Jones] were on the ball and could turn and could get out of this man-marking situation the pitch was really open for us.

“There we could have found Trent [Alexander-Arnold] one or two times more often, I would say: that could have caused them even more problems.”