Liverpool’s captain, Virgil van Dijk, conceded they were punished for’sloppy’ mistakes following their 3-0 Europa League home defeat by Atalanta.

This competition provides the opportunity to end Jurgen Klopp’s reign with a European trophy on May 22, but their chances of reaching the Dublin showpiece are in risk.

Liverpool lacked creativity and cohesion in the first leg of a quarter-final in which Atalanta has complete control after Gianluca Scamacca’s brace and a late Mario Pasalic goal.

Van Dijk told TNT Sports: ‘A very, very disappointing evening. Too many individual mistakes and we got punished for it. It feels bad. 

‘With the man-marking system they do, we have to do much better. When we have the ball we have to do better and be much stronger. The spaces were open and they punished us immediately. 

‘A very disappointing night for all of us but we can’t dwell on it for too long. We need everyone to look forward to another big game. We have to switch back onto getting results. 

‘We were wide open. It’s more that we conceded the goals because we lost the ball in difficult areas. It hurts. But it can’t put us down. We have to react pretty quickly.’

It was Liverpool’s first Anfield defeat since losing to Real Madrid in February, and it followed the Premier League hopefuls’ potentially damaging 2-2 stalemate at arch rivals Manchester United on Sunday.

Van Dijk added: ‘It hurts, of course. We have not lost here in a long time. 

‘But we shouldn’t take the credit away from them. They punished us for being sloppy in possession.

‘We still had chances to score one or two and unfortunately we didn’t. 

‘If you don’t believe, there’s no point going to Italy. We have made it very hard for ourselves going there 3-0 down. 

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Atalanta earned a shock 3-0 win over Liverpool at Anfield in the first leg of their quarter-final

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Gianluca Scamacca gave Atalanta a first half lead with his effort going under Kelleher

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Scamacca doubled his tally in the second half after the forward was picked out in space

‘But the way to bounce back is by winning the game on the weekend. 

‘We need everyone to switch it back on. Then we can focus on putting out at least four goals over there.’