Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp tried to be positive after their FA Cup elimination at Brighton.
The Reds went in front at Falmer Stadium through Harvey Elliott's neat finish; however, Lewis Dunk deflected a shot from Tariq Lamptey to wrong-foot Alisson Becker and level before the break.
The fourth-round tie was then settled in favour of Brighton two minutes into stoppage time when Kaoru Mitoma controlled a cross from Pervis Estupinan and finished from close range.
Klopp said, "We came here to go through to the next round, with the game a couple of weeks ago in mind, which was pretty much rock-bottom of the performances we had in my time [here]. So that was better today, much better.
"But still, in the end, we concede two goals from set-pieces. We pretty much closed the gaps where they passed through last time, but around set-pieces that doesn't help, so you have to do different stuff, so twice we were not close enough to avoid the goal. That doesn't feel great, obviously. That's not cool, but we have to take it.
"I think this is really a way you can get knocked out of a cup competition. If we are in a better situation, 10 points more in the league and stuff like this and then you lose here at Brighton, you just say, 'Respect.' What they do is really good. But we are obviously in a situation where we constantly want to make the final step, and that's why it feels now especially bad in this moment because it didn't happen. But there were, again, steps in the right direction you can imagine nobody wants to hear that anymore, I cannot hear it anymore, but it's still right. That means we have to go from there.
Today was much better. With the performance from today two weeks ago, that would've looked different as well. There are really steps. But I understand 100 per cent. I don't sit here and think, 'What are they talking about?' I understand 100 per cent where you are coming from. But it's just the situation we are in.
"There's no other way and you know it as good as I do [than] to fight through. You never hear a manager sitting in a situation like this, 'By the way, we change that and then you will see against Wolves.' It doesn't go like this and that's why we keep working 100 per cent. Again, I'm very sorry, probably a lot of Liverpool fans are from Brighton, so they saw us now twice in two weeks. They were brilliant, absolutely brilliant again. Today we paid a little bit back, I would say. They saw a goal, they saw chances, so it was better. In the end, one goal is deflected and one is in the 92nd minute, so that's a bad piece of the truth as well. You should not forget that, but we are still out and that's obviously the worst outcome of a game you can have. But from here we can go and we will."