Arne Slot has acknowledged that Liverpool are still adjusting to a new style of play, which he believes became clearly necessary during their Premier League title-winning campaign last season.
The Reds head into the weekend sitting top of the table, but their recent form has raised some concerns.
Liverpool have suffered back-to-back defeats for only the second time under Slot, losing 2-1 to Crystal Palace in the Premier League last weekend before a 1-0 Champions League setback against Galatasaray in Istanbul on Tuesday night.
Earlier in the campaign, inconsistent performances were often masked by a series of late winners.
However, despite a summer spending spree of almost £450million on new signings, the team is still searching for fluency and rhythm.
Slot, whose side travel to Chelsea on Saturday evening, explained that the significant investment was driven by a realisation that Liverpool had begun to struggle when trying to break down opponents from open play last season.
“We were very happy winning the league, but we didn’t shut our eyes for the second part of the season, how many times we needed a set-piece to win, which is not something bad because Arsenal and Chelsea are needing a set-piece almost every single game at the moment,” the Dutchman said.
“That’s why we also had the window that we had – sometimes to replace, sometimes to add a certain quality.
“And it’s up to us to show that we can do better in these kind of games than we did in the second part of last season and the first part of this season.”
Slot added: “In the meantime, we almost won every single game (this season).
“But the margins are not the same any more as the first part of the last season, with 3-0 against Bournemouth, 6-3 at Tottenham and 5-0 at West Ham.
“And then you depend a bit more on luck or bad luck or on a set-piece.
“We are trying to go to a situation where we don’t need a set-piece to win a game or we don’t need someone to fall on the ground to get a penalty, or a referee to do extra time of extra time of extra time.
“That is something we dislike.”
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