Liverpool's unbeaten run ended with stunning 3-0 loss at Watford

Klopp remains upbeat after Liverpool's unbeaten streak ends with stunning 3-0 loss to Watford

SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (FEBRUARY 29, 2020) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1.

LIVERPOOL MANAGER JUERGEN KLOPP SPEAKING AT NEWS CONFERENCE AFTER LOSING TO WATFORD 3-0 2.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) LIVERPOOL MANAGER, JUERGEN KLOPP, SAYING: "I think 3-0 is a bit harsh but we had a big hand in that.

So, we don't have to think about that.

We have to start with the most important thing - congratulations Watford, well deserved.

That's what should be the headline." 3.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) LIVERPOOL MANAGER, JUERGEN KLOPP, SAYING: "We had not enough chances, we didn't create enough and that's what leads then to a defeat.

That's how football is.

It has nothing to do with games you won before, had nothing to do with the games you will win.

It's just this one football game and for tonight, we have to admit that Watford was the better team." 4.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) LIVERPOOL MANAGER, JUERGEN KLOPP, SAYING: "Not really, because I don't think you can break records because you want to break records.

You break records because you are one hundred per cent focused on each step you have to do, whatever record it is - a marathon or whatever - and for that you have to perform and the boys performed.

That's why we won the games so often.

But, tonight we were not good enough and that's not now a plus for me that I think in history, when they look back in five hundred years and will say 'Liverpool nearly did it.'".

5.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) LIVERPOOL MANAGER, JUERGEN KLOPP, SAYING: "It's not easy to explain why exactly tonight it didn't happen for us, but it should not be now the biggest sensation in world football that it happened.

We play only against teams, they fight with all they have for their own targets.

Now Watford was the first team who could really use that.

For me, if you ask me 'what was the biggest surprise?

The performance or the result?'.

The biggest surprise for me is that Watford fights for staying in the league." STORY: Liverpool's unbeaten run in this season's Premier League was ended in unfathomable fashion on Saturday (February 29) as struggling Watford hammered the European champions 3-0 at their ecstatic Vicarage Road stadium.

Ismaila Sarr inspired the extraordinary upset, stunning Liverpool with two goals in six second-half minutes before setting up captain Troy Deeney with a third for the team who had started the day one from bottom, 55 points behind the runaway leaders.

Liverpool's first league defeat of the season in their 28th match meant the end of their hopes of going the whole league campaign unbeaten as the new 'Invincibles', thus emulating Arsenal's feat of 2003-04 and Preston North End's in 1888-89.

It also concluded their run of 44 league matches without defeat stretching back to January 2019 and came on the day they were expected to surpass champions Manchester City by creating a new English top-flight record of 19 successive league victories.

The setback will doubtless not stop Juergen Klopp's men going on to lift their first English title for 30 years as they remain 22 points ahead of their nearest pursuers City, who have a game in hand.

Yet their season's aura of domestic invincibility was demolished.

Liverpool had previously dropped only two points in the league this season -- their draw at Manchester United in October -- but from the start, Watford attacked them with a vigour that belied their struggles in the league.

Watford, who had not won any of their previous five league games, quickly looked the more likely to break the deadlock in the first half, with Gerard Deulofeu proving Liverpool's main tormentor before he was stretchered off with a knee injury that manager Nigel Pearson described as "bad".

Yet it was only when the Senegalese winger Sarr struck twice just before the hour mark that the Hornets dared to dream.

First he poked home from close range after Liverpool had failed to deal with a throw-in and then, after Will Hughes had set up an attack with a neat backheel, he powered forward and lifted the ball over the advancing Alisson.

Sarr then completed his fairytale day by latching on to Trent Alexander-Arnold's poor back pass and setting up Deeney, although he did miss a good chance to complete his hat-trick.

Liverpool never gave up and Adam Lallana hit the post with one thumping drive but, for the first time in the league this season, they had been thoroughly outplayed, as Klopp acknowledged with his generous on-field congratulations to his opponents.

For Watford, these were crucial points, as Pearson's men moved out of the bottom three on goal difference into 17th place.

(Production: Stefan Haskins)