Jürgen Klopp has revealed the Liverpool squad have held ‘intensive talks’ as they aim to improve their defending of set pieces, with the manager confident the work being done at Melwood will bear fruit on the pitch.

Although there’s been a feel-good factor around the club’s training facility following the dramatic manner of Saturday’s 5-4 victory over Norwich City, the manner of the goals conceded at Carrow Road is something that has been addressed in the team meetings since.

Speaking to journalists on Monday afternoon at his pre-match press conference, Klopp acknowledged the Reds require improvement when it comes to standing up to opposition set plays.

He said: “Of course, we know about this problem. I’m sorry to say it’s not a problem we can ignore and try to sort it that way. It’s obvious we’ve not done too well, but we are a football team and always working on our weaknesses, as we are in this short period between [games].

“It’s not too easy because yesterday was recovery, today is extended recovery and then tomorrow is a little session then we have to play in the evening. It’s maybe not the best time, but we spoke about it really intensively, we had good talk together – not the first one, but hopefully the last one!

“In the end it is clear – it’s not about the formation because we changed that, it’s not always about the quality of the set plays, it is more often about what we are doing in the situations.

“At Norwich, it was different in the sense we defended the first ball well, but then struggled with the second or third. That’s a normal reaction after you’ve spoken about it, changed something and are fully concentrated on defending in the situation, but then you close the book too early and you don’t push up. The goal of Mbokani, where there was still a full box and we could have pushed up a little bit earlier, and then whoever was left in our box would have been offside. That would have been a clever idea.

“It’s not too late to learn, but now it is time to learn and show that we have. It’s not allowed that at a set piece it is 30 seconds of [holding our breath] and waiting to see what happens.

“We have to get cool again and most of our time in our lives we’ve known how it works; now we have a bad moment in defending set plays but we can change it now. Between Stoke and West Ham it will be one day more, which is important for training, and then maybe we can do something on the pitch.”

Another area of Liverpool’s performance Klopp is keen to improve upon is the intensity with which they start matches, with the boss feeling his team were not at their best in the opening exchanges at Norwich.

However, one huge positive for the German was the sight of Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Adam Lallana all getting their names on the scoresheet.

“The most important thing at Norwich was the different names on the scoreboard,” Klopp said. “That was important – that we had goals from the midfielders. We need to have different names on the scoreboard – that’s what we had at Norwich and that what was key for the result.

“We had not only enough bodies in the box, but also everybody in the right positions in the box with the right idea, good timing and good passing in a situation under big pressure. With this, I am really satisfied.

“We spoke about the set plays and I didn’t like how we defended them, but in the end it was only because we conceded the goals that we could react like this.

“The really positive thing was the reaction to the result in the game, but I didn’t like our start in the game. Our first 15 minutes in the game…I don’t have the words for this.

“We’ve had this situation two or three times this season; Newcastle was similar and West Ham was similar. Starting the game, playing a little bit of football but it wasn’t a real fight and usually you concede an early goal.

“The striking back mentality is much better than we had when I came, but now we need to find a way to start at our highest level in each game, not only in some.”