‘Clear’ - Steve Cooper makes blame admission after Liverpool’s victory over Nottingham Forest

Steve Cooper admitted that Nottingham Forest only had themselves to blame in their loss to Liverpool at Anfield.

Jurgen Klopp’s side earned a 3-2 victory over the City Ground outfit - with all five goals score after half-time. Diogo Jota twice put the Reds ahead but Neco Williams and Morgan Gibbs-White cancelled out each of the Portuguese’s efforts. However, Mo Salah’s 70th-minute intervention delivered Liverpool all three points and back-to-back triumphs.

Each of the home side’s goals came from set-pieces - and Cooper rued Forest’s defending from those scenarios in their bid to avoid Premier League relegation.

The head coach said: “We didn’t defend the three goals anywhere near well enough. It’s three unavoidable situations and we can only blame ourselves for them, that’s clear.

“In terms of the game in general, I thought we minimised Liverpool to very little from open play which is not an easy task. The boys stuck to the plan, believed in the plan and delivered it well.

“We know that we have found it hard to score goals away from home, so to score two at Anfield shows that we’ve done some good things in the game.

“To come out of the game knowing that we’ve scored two goals, hit the crossbar and concede from three set pieces is really frustrating.

“We’ve got to keep believing. It’s a big week coming up and we have a home game next. It doesn’t matter who we play at home, we’re always in with a good chance of winning because of the support and the atmosphere we get and we need them more than ever.

“We’ve got to turn up on Wednesday with a lot of things we’ve done today, plus more. Everybody has got to do more and that continues until we get what we want."

Liverpool moved up to sixth in their pursuit of European qualification.