And the Liverpool manager believes poor defending contributed to helping Stoke score three goals in one game for the first time in 13 months.

“It was a great start for us, getting our first penalty, and we went a goal up,” said Rodgers. “But we just gave away poor goals.

“All three goals were actually quite straightforward to defend, a direct ball for the first, Martin Skrtel slips, which is unfortunate. But for the other two goals, we've got to be much better than that. That's the disappointment really.

“We got into some good areas, but ultimately when you come here, which is a difficult place to come, you've got to defend better or else you'll get nothing. And we probably deserved to get nothing.

“Everyone knows, every coach, every manager understands, the strengths of Stoke and they do it very well. But when you're prepared to deal with it, it's even more disappointing.

“It was a corner, a throw-in and a direct ball, which was the first one. So it's hard to take because we had some good spells in the game, but we've got to be better.

“We conceded soft goals. The nature of the goals we conceded was very, very soft and if you do that, it's always going to be uphill in terms of getting a result.”

Liverpool have lost three of their last six games, with last night’s reverse coming just five days after a 4-0 thumping of Fulham.

And Rodgers admitted: “I said it during the week that this would be the biggest thing for the group is our consistency. We were terrific at the weekend, but you've got to be able to put some runs of games together.

“Otherwise you're taking two steps forward continually and taking one or two back before going again. Maybe that's been the nature of the group over the last couple of years in terms of where we finish.

“We're looking to improve that and that's something we need an awful lot of work to do.”