Jurgen Klopp has admitted Liverpool did not play well in their win over Preston North End on Wednesday.

The Reds claimed a 2-0 win over the Championship side to reach the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.

Speaking about the performance, Klopp said: "We didn't play well, that's how it is.

"We started quite OK, but then we lost the structure completely and that was the problem. We were too lively, too desperate to get the ball.

"Everybody dropped and we didn't have enough players between the lines, we didn't have [someone] always in behind the lines. That's normal, that can absolutely happen when you don't play a lot together.

"These boys, they train a lot together but they don't play that much [together], so that absolutely can happen. That makes it difficult especially because Preston was not too bothered about any kind of possession, they kicked the ball long and they fought for these balls. All of a sudden, they get set-pieces, the atmosphere comes, we lose the momentum, they get the momentum.

"Football games are like this. I saw a lot of nice individual performances; as a team we can play better, but individually I saw a few really nice performances and that's absolutely OK. It's all about getting through to the next round, that's what we did. That it [would be] difficult with 11 changes, that was clear."