Brendan Rodgers admits his Liverpool players are not reaching the levels expected of them as a 3-1 defeat at West Ham on Saturday condemned the Reds to their third Premier League loss of the season.
- Delaney: Three points from Upton Park
Winston Reid and Diafra Sakho put the Hammers two goals up within seven minutes at Upton Park, and while Raheem Sterling pulled one back before the break for the visitors, Morgan Amalfitano's late finish wrapped up three points for Sam Allardyce's side.
Liverpool have just six points from their opening five league games of the campaign, and Rodgers -- whose side only lost six games last season -- says they need to improve quickly to match their performances of 2013-14.
"We're a team who are associated with coming out very quickly and for some reason we didn't get going today,'' he told Sky Sports 1 after the game.
"Be fair to West Ham, they pressed the ball very well and we were unable to play around that. We were 2-0 down very early and from that point it was very difficult for us to come back.
"We got back into the game at 2-1 and from that, probably up until they got the third goal, we had decent control of the game but the standard of our play was nowhere near what we'd expect."
The game came at the end of a week in which Liverpool made their return to the Champions League but Rodgers would not use the excuse of a European hangover for their defeat.
"That's something we've got to get used to, we've got a lot more Champions League games," he added. "The group has come such a long way and the level expected now has grown, but we have to be able to cope with that and at the moment we're not."
Information from the Press Association was used in this report.