Simon Mignolet pinpointed Liverpool's lack of creativity as one of the key reasons they fell to defeat away at Leicester City in the Premier League on Tuesday night.
Having come to the rescue of his teammates with a number of strong stops in the first-half, denying both Shinji Okazaki and Riyad Mahrez, Mignolet was helpless to prevent Jamie Vardy opening the scoring on the hour mark.
Vardy soon added to his stunning long-range strike as he took advantage of a fortunate deflection to fire home from close-range, handing the top-of-the-table Foxes a 2-0 lead which the Reds failed to respond to.
The damaging defeat leaves Mignolet and co. some distance from their top-four ambitions with just 14 top-flight games remaining this season and the goalkeeper believes it is easy to identify the source of their problems.
We weren't creative enough, explains Mignolet
Mignolet, speaking to Liverpool's official website after full-time, said: "It's difficult when you concede [the first goal]."
The Belgian custodian described that the visitors "didn't start the game well", allowing Leicester to "come into the game" and "didn't defend aggressively enough" early on.
He acknowledged that, in his position as a goalkeeper, he "had to be there to help the team out" and declared himself "happy at 0-0" at half-time after making a number of crucial saves.
But Mignolet admitted that Vardy "scored a great goal" in the second-half and insisted that a lack of innovation in the final third let Jürgen Klopp's men down as they fell to a third loss in their last five games.
The Reds' No.22 added that they are capable and good enough to "always score a goal on the counter" and insisted that, despite having created little in the first 45 minutes, they were "in the game still at half-time" which he called "positive."
But Mignolet continued to bemoan Liverpool's lack of vision and ingenuity in the final third, saying they "didn't manage to create the chances we wanted to or score a goal" and said that the end product "hasn't been there."
He insisted that they "didn't create enough chances to score a goal" and admitted that, against "this Leicester side" at the King Power Stadium, "you have to make chances to put them under pressure."
Despite saying they "didn't manage to do that" he believes his teammates "tried their best."
'Keeper calls upon Reds to bounce back next time out
With a busy February coming up, including a two-legged Europa League tie, an FA Cup replay, several key league clashes and a Capital One Cup final, Mignolet challenged his teammates to respond at home to his former club Sunderland this weekend.
"The game is played," admitted the 27-year-old, who said they "can't really change anything anymore" and must "learn from the mistakes" they made and "take the positives into the game" in which Mignolet believes they "have to take the three points."