Brendan Rodgers said Liverpool were not clinical enough during their 3-0 defeat to Manchester United on Sunday.
The Reds ended a miserable week 10 points behind their bitterest rivals with a defeat at Old Trafford, having wasted several clear cut opportunities.
United goalkeeper was named the man of the match, having denied Raheem Sterling and Mario Balotelli on six seperate occasions.
And Rodgers was left to rue those missed opportunities on an afternoon that will see the Liverpool managers position come under more scrutiny.
“We created so many chances today and David De Gea was man of the match. He’s had four or five games like that this season,” Rodgers said.
“David’s a top-class goalkeeper and his ability to make saves is outstanding, but his distribution is also excellent. He knows when to go short and when to go long.
“I don’t think we deserved to be on the end of the scoreline but they were probably much more clinical when they needed to be.
“It’s not often you come here and create that many chances. We won here 3-0 last year and probably didn’t even create half of the opportunities. For the goalkeeper to get man of the match tells you everything.
“It was a side of the game I was looking for the team to improve on – we created more chances today than what we have done for maybe five or six games, so I was pleased with that aspect but obviously disappointed with the first and third goals we conceded. The second one was clearly offside and was a poor decision at a critical time in the game.
“I don’t think with the players we had and how they worked, we could have done any more. If we don’t make mistakes, the game is much closer.”
Rodgers continued: “We had enough chances to get something from the game and it probably epitomised what our season has been like – there have been nowhere near enough goals in the team and that puts pressure on you in the games. When you concede then you sometimes think you can’t get the goals, and that has clearly been an issue for us.
“You come here and create so many chances, you’d expect to score at least two or three of those, but it wasn’t to be. The players kept going and they gave everything into the game, but we just couldn’t find the goal that could get us back into the game.”
The build up was good, but without the likes of Sturridge to get on the end of a pass, the end result was zilch. BR is having everything go wrong for him. The worst part is the continuing unavailability of Sturridge. The second is the total lack of form by any of his summer signings, especially Lovren. Add to this the dip in form of some established players like Coutinho and you have a “perfect storm” of problems that any manager would find difficult to deal with.