Rodgers: How we'll meet this challenge
For Brendan Rodgers, ending the frustrating run of form that Liverpool have endured during the past month is a challenge that the manager is determined to embrace as he seeks to return his team to the heights of the previous year-and-a-half.
The Reds were overturned by FC Basel in their second Champions League Group B fixture of the season last night, as a single goal by Marco Streller shortly after the break secured a 1-0 result for the hosts in Switzerland.
That disappointment followed on from the shock of watching the morale boost of a Merseyside derby victory evaporate in stoppage time on Saturday when a swipe of Phil Jagielka's right boot brought Everton an unlikely point from an Anfield draw.
With the hectic fixture schedule relentless in its demands of Liverpool, the players must now quickly prepare for the visit of West Bromwich Albion this weekend - with tunnel vision set on three important points before the international break.
Rodgers said today: "At this moment, we're having a difficult moment - we're nowhere near what we've been. But that's the great challenge for the players and I. We'll look at it even harder, analyse it more.
"But we just need to ensure that we keep it simple and ensure that we keep to the values and ethics of this team, which is about hard work and honesty and concentrating on our performance.
"It's an exciting challenge. This is still an incredible job - nothing has changed. The first six months was difficult here and then for 18 months we were on a magic ride in terms of performance level and everything improving. It's been fantastic.
"There was big change here in the summer. We lost a world-class player. We had to improve the squad by bringing in a number of players and, unfortunately for us, we've lost a number of our key players [through injury].
"So, unfortunately, it brings us into a little period of transition again. Ideally for me it would have been a case of keeping the squad that we had and then adding a few bodies to that to pad it up and thicken up the squad.
"But it wasn't the case. We lost a player, unfortunately, but we've gone into a little bit of transition again. It's something that was difficult in the first few months when I got here. But the beauty of that period is that we saw the vision and the ideas that came out of the other side."
At his pre-match press conference before the Baggies travel to Anfield on Saturday afternoon, Rodgers could not report the return of any injured players, with a 'wait and see' situation on striker Daniel Sturridge.
The boss stressed that injuries are no excuse, however, pointing instead to the necessity for more hard work and the continual integration of his summer recruits as the key to achieving the required result.
"It feels like a new group again, with the injection of so many players, which we did need," he continued. "We have maybe had to put one or two of them in much quicker than we would have wanted because of injuries to other players.
"But I'm not here to whine and complain about injuries, we just need to get on with working hard and we need to go back to the core principle of what our good play, performances and wins have been about - which is the team.
"The job now is to integrate all of that to make winning performances. West Brom's last two results have been excellent - they had a very good win away at Tottenham and then looked very good once they got the first goal against Burnley.
"We know it will be a tough game for us; Alan Irvine will have them very well organised and they have got some good players. But we expect, when we're at home, to be on the front foot in any game and look to win - and that will be the objective for this weekend."
The Reds have yet to rediscover the free-flowing exploits in front of goal that allowed Rodgers' charges to plunder a remarkable tally of 101 strikes in the Barclays Premier League last season.
Altering the trend is something the manager believes will be borne out of teamwork. "That's something throughout the course of the team and the function of the team," he expanded.
"We need to return to being a team, which has brought us success over the last 18 months or so. We have been selfless in our work for each other.
"At the minute, when confidence is naturally a little bit low in the team, it can become more about the individual, but that isn't what we're about. This club is about the whole function of the team. When we work to that principle, that's when we're at our best."