From sunshine to hardest rain - Klopp glad rare defeat felt 'really bad'

The "sunshine" of Liverpool's Premier League procession was interrupted by "hardest rain" in midweek, and Jurgen Klopp wants a response.

Jurgen Klopp believes the pain of a rare defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday showed Liverpool are a successful team.

The Reds have not been beaten in the Premier League all season, dropping points only once in a draw against Manchester United, and lead the table by a remarkable 22 points as they close in on a first top-flight title since 1990.

Klopp's men have their work cut out to defend their European crown, though, after going down 1-0 to Atleti at the Wanda Metropolitano in the first leg of their last-16 tie.

Liverpool return to Premier League action against West Ham on Monday, yet the disappointment of their loss - compared by Klopp as going "from sunshine to hardest rain" - is a motivating factor as the leaders aim to bounce back.

"[The West Ham game] is to put things right, just not in the [same] competition," Klopp told a pre-match news conference on Friday.

"Yes, we lost the [Atletico] game, and there was absolutely no positive in it - we lost the game. But it's important, if there's any help in that result, that it was a defeat and it felt like a defeat.

"It felt after the game like a defeat, it felt the next morning like a defeat. There was nothing, 'Oh, but in the league we are like this'.

"What we said after the game, 'It's not done yet', is the truth. But it's not like we say, 'Anfield alone will sort it'. We have to put a proper performance in.

"Atletico showed obviously a lot of passion, desire, stuff like this, for the result. They were fighting for the result, 100 per cent.

"But to put it right is to get the other feeling back, the other feeling I don't think we have lost, about how a win feels.

"We won a few games and now we lost it, and the difference is massive. It's much more than three points. It's really from sunshine to hardest rain - and that's how it should be.

"If you really want to be successful, if you could be successful, if we could have been in that game, then it has to feel really bad.

"So yes, we have to put things right, even when it's a different competition."