Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish blamed poor defending and the absence of his biggest stars as Liverpool won comfortably at Villa Park on Sunday.
First-half goals from Craig Bellamy and Martin Skrtel sealed a 2-0 success for the Reds.
McLeish said: "I've got to be disappointed with the goals we conceded.
"It doesn't matter who you're playing - you shouldn't be shipping two goals from set-pieces and we've got to address that on the training ground."
The manager also pointed to the absence of Gabriel Agbonlahor, who was suspended, and the injured Darren Bent as reasons why Villa failed to seriously test the Liverpool defence.
"We just didn't have that cutting edge and when you see who was missing today you can see why," he said.
"With the young players we had in the squad I thought we had nothing to lose and they tried gamely but we lacked a bit of nous against a team of high quality, who have a lot of players who can make a difference. There was a gulf from that point of view.
"In the first half the movement was good and we had shots at goal - but it's all about the players who were missing as well.
"Gabriel Agbonlahor has been in tremendous form this season and Darren Bent as well, while young Chris Herd has done a great job in the middle of the field."
However, McLeish is hopeful all three will be available for Wednesday's visit of Arsenal.
He added: "We hope Darren can make it for midweek, we'll probably get Herdy scanned so I'm not sure - but we'll definitely get Gabby back, so that's a bonus for us."
