KENNY DALGLISH was left frustrated by refereeing decisions after Liverpool slid to their first defeat of the season at Stoke City.

Jon Walters’s first-half penalty settled matters at the Britannia Stadium, as Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the Premier League campaign came to an end.

But Dalglish was angered by referee Mark Clattenburg’s decision to award Stoke their penalty, and then seething as he failed to spot two equally-strong Liverpool shouts.

Afterwards the Anfield manager said he would be consulting with the club’s owners before deciding how best to deal with such decisions in future, and hinted that his civilised approach to match officials was doing the club no favours.

Dalglish said: “If we continue to play like that with the same attitude and the commitment then we will be OK this season, but if we continually get battered with things that are outside our control then we are not going to have much chance.

“Our first four league games have all had a contentious decision in them and every one of them has gone against us.

“We would like to be respectful towards referees. I think I have been respectful to referees, but more importantly than being respectful to referees in their campaign it’s about having respect for my football club.

“If I feel Liverpool are suffering then maybe I need to go down the same route as some other people go and see if we can get some benefit from that.

“I’ll speak to the owners first and see what they say because the last thing I want is for my behaviour to infringe on the club’s success in any way.”

Liverpool dominated for large periods, and wasted a host of second-half chances as they sought an equaliser.

“I think it’s a wee bit of an understatement to say we deserved something out of the game,” added Dalglish.

“We can only do what we do ourselves and sometimes other things are taken out of your jurisdiction. We don’t have any complaint, for want of a better word, about Stoke City. They played very, very hard, they played well. They got their goal, they defended well and courageously at times.”