What has happened to Liverpool?

Jurgen Klopp said his side were punished for making one mistake during their 1-1 draw with Newcastle.

The German tactician fielded an attacking quartet of Coutinho, Salah, Mane and Firmino for the trip to the North East, but that was not enough to get past a spirited Newcastle team.

After the game, Klopp was clearly frustrated his men couldn't add to Coutinho's stunning opening goal, which was cancelled out by a strike from Joselu minutes later.

"As you can imagine, it is not the nicest moment. We create and create and we made one mistake - a real mistake - and we got punished for it. I think the opponent made a lot more mistakes that were forced by us and did not get punished for it," he told 'Sky Sports'.

"At the end, the man of the match is from Newcastle and we have 80% possession or whatever it was. That's the situation and that's how the world looks on it and we just have to carry on. It's what we do.

"Obviously, if you don't help yourself, nobody else helps you so we have to score in these situations. That's clear. We had the big moments, unbelievable big moments, and scored only once. The opponent didn't have too many chances and also scored once and that's the fact.

"I hope the boys come back healthy from the international duty and we'll go again."

So, where has it all gone wrong for Liverpool?

'It takes them too long to switch'

Jamie Carragher believes the root of his former team's defensive problems is their inability to switch out of their composed passing mentality.

'It's the switch', he said during 'Sky Sports'. 'I played in a lot of teams, under (Rafa) Benitez and (Gerard) Houllier, who were a lot more defensive thinking.

'They weren't as good on the eye as this Liverpool team, so you'd go into the game with a mindset of "I'm defending… I'm coming away to Newcastle and I'm getting a clean sheet." And you'd always be switched on defending. Maybe that inhibited us going forward at times.

'But with this Liverpool team it becomes like a training session. You have so much of the ball and you're passing and it's slow. As a defender we all love to play in the game – getting on the ball, passing, coming short and getting involved – but when you're defending you have to be really aggressive.

'When you're on the ball you want to be a bit more composed. Liverpool can't switch from that composed way to that real nasty aggressiveness that you need as a defender. It takes them too long to switch.'

Are Liverpool out of the Premier league title race?

Klopp doesn't think so. He believes they should not be written off despite the unconvincing display and claims his team is simply going through a 'hard moment'.

'We are having our hard moment - other teams will have their hard moment.

'We need to work on our thing and I really think it looks like we are not far away from a real challenger.

'If we do what we are good at then we can score more goals, we will win more games and we will close the gap.

'We were the better team, again, we created more chances, again, we were in very promising situations and we don't score.

'That, of course, is a problem, but it will not stay like this. I know, I have been around football long enough.

'There will be one day when the knot opens, that is pretty likely.'

What do you think? Can Liverpool still mount a serious title challenge?