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The away dressing room wasn't a happy place at Vicarage Road last Sunday.

I'm reliably informed that as Liverpool traipsed back into the bowels of the stadium, some of the senior professionals took it upon themselves to declare one thing.

That simply CANNOT happen again.

They simply can't allow teams to run over them and knock them out of their stride.

The older players realise that's a problem. And it has been a problem for a while.

At Premier League level, if you have a soft centre then teams know they can bully you. Crystal Palace, West Ham, Stoke City and now Watford have all done that to us in recent times.

There's nothing wrong with playing that way. One of the great things about the Premier League is that there are different teams with different skills and qualities that are able to play in different ways.

Some play short balls, some play long balls, some play two up front, some play three up front.

It's a matter of preparing your team, then altering it a bit when matters become fit.

You can bet the Watford coaching staff will be getting a call off the likes of Sunderland and West Ham United over the coming days, asking how best to get at Liverpool.

We need to be stronger. We need more steel.

It's not a matter of going around kicking opposing players. Maybe you might just have to put a slightly different player in a slightly different position to counter the opposition.

There's nothing wrong with that. Let's face it, gone are the days when Liverpool teams went and opposed themselves on the opposition in the knowledge they were stronger, quicker, faster and more skilful.

Look at Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana. They are all good on the ball but, when we lose it, they aren't great at winning it back.

The game passed them by at Watford. The Hornets played 4-4-2, got the ball up quickly into good areas, ran at us, harassed us and closed us down. We just couldn't cope.

One of the weaknesses of our game at the moment is that everybody is running around in different positions.

That's great when it works. But for some periods of a game, it's better just to sit in.

And just where did Emre Can play against Watford? He runs all over the place. You can't have too many players doing that in a team.

When we lose the ball, we need to have as many people as possible in positions to win the ball back.

It's an all-round thing. And one where we must improve.

New defensive duo can be centre of attention

Liverpool shouldn't be massively worried by Martin Skrtel being injured for the foreseeable future.

Instead, Jurgen Klopp will now be given the opportunity to see a new centre-back partnership in action.

Skrtel was our player of the year in 2012 but there's little doubt he hasn't been hitting the heights over the last 18 months.

Indeed, with him being the mainstay of an underperforming defence, it's a surprise he hasn't found himself out of the starting line-up on the basis of form alone.

Despite being right-footed, Dejan Lovren prefers to play on the left side of defence, although he'll have to shift to the right to accommodate Mamadou Sakho.

It shouldn't be a problem.

When I moved to Liverpool, Alan Hansen played on the left and I had played on the left for Brighton. I went over to the right, and it's simply a matter of going out and playing and learning the position.

For both Lovren and Sakho, they know Skrtel is going to be out for six weeks – which will cover a lot of games at this time of the season – so it's a matter of going out and performing.

Sakho needs regular football and once he gets that, he looks a decent player.

Lovren is a bit similar only he has tended to let you down and then be dropped, time and again.

This time is different, and he hasn't done anything wrong before missing out through injury.

The pair of them can more than do a job, and then there's always Kolo Toure in case they need a rest.

Why Klopp will stick to what he knows in New Year

It's approaching the end of the year and it's time for Jurgen Klopp to take stock of life at Anfield.

And he'll decide things have gone okay.

No better, no worse. Just okay.

If the wins at Manchester City and Chelsea were the high points, then the defeats at Newcastle United and Watford were undoubtedly the low ones.

Klopp will look at those games and decide what his team did right and what his team did wrong, and then address the latter while not losing any of the former.

Liverpool can't afford to be brilliant one week and then get knocked off the ball the next.

They have to show more resistance. That'll be the one thing Klopp has to drive into his players.

As for all those people who a few weeks ago said we could win the league, we all knew that was never going to be the case.

Klopp knew that. I think he can see lots of positive things and he can see plenty of negatives.

He can change them over time either by instilling into every player what is expected of them week in week out, and if not then get rid of them.

He'll need to find different ways against different teams. That's why Premier League teams have such big squads.

It's a real horses for courses league, and in many ways that's why it is so competitive.

While I don't think he'll be busy during the January transfer window, I'd be surprised if Klopp does nothing.

He'll probably be looking at players he knows in Germany. But he'll have to be convinced he can cut it in the Premier League.

Two's trouble? Do me a favour...

A lot has been made of teams playing two up front once again. Watford and Leicester, for example, both do it.

But that only works if you have the right type of players. And Liverpool don't have them at the moment.

You might say Christian Benteke and Daniel Sturridge at a push, but they're rarely fit at the same time.

And does any really top team have two up front? Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona don't.

As for defenders saying they find it difficult to defend against two strikers... do me a favour!