'It's difficult to explain' - Toby on Anfield loss

Toby Alderweireld certainly reflected a shellshocked dressing room as he struggled to find the words to describe our performance at Anfield.

At the home of the Grand National, we simply weren’t at the races in the first half and Liverpool took full advantage.

Sadio Mane scored twice in as many minutes as we found ourselves 2-0 down inside 20 minutes. It might have been worse.

We did start coming to life at the end of the half - Heung-Min Son denied one-on-one by Simon Mignolet - but the second half was a bit of a non-event, the scoreline stayed the same and we were left to reflect on our first loss in 10 in the Premier League.

“Normally aggression and desire are our strengths so it’s difficult to explain,” said Toby. “We have to learn from it which is easy to say but we have to see why and try to do it better next time.

“At half-time we discussed how they tried to put pressure on us and maybe we needed to go a bit longer and pick up the second balls and create problems there. We did that better (in the second half) but not as well as we normally play.”

You know it’s not your day when even Toby picks up a yellow card - the frustration getting to the players late on. “We wanted to do better and it’s better that you see this frustration and that we care but we have to put our strength and energy into the next game now,” he added.