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MANCHESTER. — Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp responded to his side’s FA Cup defeat by Manchester United on Sunday by saying “don’t worry about us”.

The loss to their fierce rivals means Liverpool have now won only one of their past seven games.

The defending champions have also fallen to fourth in the English Premier League, six points behind leaders United.

“I saw a lot of steps in the right direction and that’s all good,” said Klopp.

Liverpool won the Champions League in 2019 and stormed to the English Premier League title in 2020, finishing 18 points ahead of second-placed Manchester City and 33 in front of United in third.

However, they have gone five games without a win in the league and their only win in the past seven was in the FA Cup against a youthful Aston Villa, whose senior team had been hit by coronavirus.

Liverpool took the lead through Mohammed Salah at Old Trafford, their first goal after two blanks in the Premier League, only for Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford to put the hosts in front.

Salah drew Liverpool level before substitute Bruno Fernandes won it for United with a powerful free-kick.

“It’s not what we wanted, so it’s frustrating,” said Klopp. “We weren’t on our absolute top [level], but we made a lot of steps in the right direction.

“You don’t have to worry about us, as a group we are really together.”

Klopp says his side did not play at the level required to beat Manchester United as the Reds suffered a 3-2 defeat in the FA Cup fourth round on Sunday.

Klopp was happy with many aspects of his team’s performance, but feels they made too many mistakes in key moments.

“There was a lot of good things and some mistakes around the goals. If you want to win here you have to be absolutely top and we were not,” he told BBC Sport.

“For the first goal we had no protection, we wanted it too much. Things like this should not happen but they can happen. We had too many players in a receiving position.

“We can take things out of this game, we try to learn from every game.”

Salah’s double takes his goal tally up to 19 in 28 appearances in all competitions.

“It’s good for Mo Salah, good for the confidence,” Klopp said of the Egypt international’s double.

“It was a tough game. We want it hard but tonight it was not enough. If you win a game there are negatives, if you lose a game too but I saw the boys really, really wanted it.

“We had problems on the counter-attack, it was intense, but there were positives.”

He later told reporters at a press conference: — Goal.com.