It was a moment of brutal honesty, from a manager at a loss to explain what he had just seen from his team.
Jurgen Klopp had already been over to apologise to the Liverpool supporters - and rightly so - by the time he was grabbed by BT Sport for his post-match interview at Napoli’s Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
His face said it all. It’s not often that Klopp has to analyse a defeat - this was only the fourth Liverpool have suffered in 2022 - but he could offer no defence for this one, a 4-1 loss which represents the Reds’ worst in European competition since 1966.
“It’s tough to take,” began Klopp, but it was what he went on to say which offered the greatest insight into his mindset right now.
“They will say - and I would say - it's a perfect moment (to play Liverpool),” he concluded. “We have to try to find a setup to be much better in pretty much everything."
Those are damning words, as is the fact that Klopp was asked, in his post-match press conference, whether he fears the sack at Anfield. He doesn’t, and nor should he. We’ve seen some strange decisions in football, but that would be the strangest of them all. It won’t happen.
That’s not to say that things don’t need to improve. They do, and quickly. Less than four months ago, Liverpool were on the cusp of greatness. They were 15 minutes away from nicking the Premier League title and only a Thibaut Courtois masterclass away from becoming European champions. They were the team everybody feared, the one they all (begrudgingly) admired; relentless, brilliant, utterly in sync and convinced of their style and talent. They are none of those things right now.
The ‘reinvention’ Klopp speaks of needs to start right away, but what will it involve? GOAL takes a look...