LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Arne Slot admitted Liverpool are still a work in progress after the spluttering Premier League champions suffered their third successive loss in a 2-1 defeat against Chelsea on Saturday.

For the second time in the space of a week, Liverpool’s title defence was rocked by an agonising last-gasp loss.

Beaten in the final seconds at Crystal Palace last weekend, Slot’s side stumbled again as Estevao Willian grabbed a dramatic stoppage-time winner at Stamford Bridge.

Moises Caicedo had blasted Chelsea into an early lead with a superb long-range strike before Cody Gakpo equalised in the second half.

After starting the season with seven successive wins in all competitions, the Reds lost to Palace, then Galatasaray in the Champions League in midweek before their latest flop in west London.

It is the first time that Liverpool have suffered three consecutive losses since 2023 when Jurgen Klopp was in charge for defeats against Bournemouth, Real Madrid and Manchester City.

For Slot, it was a first experience in his managerial career of three defeats in a row.

Even when Liverpool were winning at the start of the season, they needed several late goals to paper over the cracks in some creaky performances.

And Slot believes his team are not yet functioning at full power because of their summer spending spree and the tragic death of Portugal forward Diogo Jota in a car crash in Spain.

Liverpool splashed out over £400 million ($539 million) on Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and a host of other players, but their two marquee signings have yet to shine.

“You are never close to your ideal. You have to work very hard to reach a certain level and then it’s hard to maintain that level because you play against other quality teams,” Slot said.

“We had our changes in the summer. Players came in at different moments. In the last weeks there has hardly been any training time. We need to bring these players into our style.

“If we had a draw today we would have had a great start to the season if you take into account everything that happened in the summer with Liverpool.”

– ‘It wasn’t about a disconnection’ –
Liverpool took 51 minutes to muster a shot on target against a Chelsea side missing out a host of injured and suspended defenders.

The Blues, beaten in their previous two league games, have also been struggling to find their form, but Liverpool were unable to take advantage.

“Another disappointing loss, that is clear. We created three big chances in the first half, they only had one and they scored it,” said Slot, whose team host Manchester United in their next match after the international break.

“The second half performance I liked. We created more than enough to score more than one goal. There were periods where I thought we were going to win it.

“We didn’t play the last pass well enough in those chances. It was end to end in the last few minutes. Either team could have won it and Chelsea did.”

Sweden striker Isak and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah once again failed to find a positive connection, but Slot is confident they will hit it off eventually.

“The more they play together the more they will connect. I had to take (Ibrahima) Konate off because he felt his quad. When Ryan (Gravenberch) started to play in that position we started to get our attacking players in much better positions,” he said.

“It wasn’t about a disconnection between players. We had to do much better with our build-up and that’s what we did in the second half.”

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca did not attend the post-match press conference after being sent off for his jubilant sprint down the touchline to celebrate Estevao’s winner.

“He is ok. Unfortunately he can’t be here because of the red card but he was so happy after the game,” Maresca’s assistant Willy Caballero said.

“We have been holding our emotions for the last couple of weeks because we have been playing well and not winning. Today was really important.”