Brendan Rodgers Blames Lack of Creativity for Loss Against Newcastle United

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers bemoaned his side's lack of 'creativity' to create clear cut chances during the loss to Newcastle United in the Premier League on Saturday.

The Reds went down 1-0 at St James' Park, and it was a disappointing performance from the Anfield club as the Geordies looked like the team that wanted the points more.

A lot of the focus following the game was again turned towards Mario Balotelli's failure to score his first goal for the club in the league, but the manager has defended the striker and blamed the team for the loss.

"It wasn't Mario's fault we lost the game, we lost it collectively. I don't want to talk about Mario, it wasn't his fault," Rodgers said, as quoted by the Daily Mail.

The Northern Irishman feels that Liverpool at least deserved a point from the game, but agrees that his team did not do enough to get an outright win.

"It was disappointing. I didn't think we deserved to lose the game, but we didn't do enough to win it," the Reds boss said, as quoted on Liverpool's official site.

"We had enough of the ball and good movement in front of the ball, but we just lacked that bit of creativity and invention in the final third of the field," the former Swansea City boss explained.

The 41-year-old manager wants his defenders to be stronger and not concede goals, as that will mean that they will not lose games even if they fail to score.

"If you can't score the goals to win the game, then it's important that you don't concede. Up until that point, we were solid defensively."

Liverpool scored 101 goals last season, just two goals shy of Chelsea's Premier League record for the highest number of goals scored in a single season.

However, this year the team has struggled to score goals and finish off games unlike the last campaign. The manager has pointed that towards the loss of Luis Suarez, who was the league's top scorer and the injury troubles of Daniel Sturridge, the second highest goal scorer last season for Liverpool's failings this time around.

"Over the last 18 months, we were a team that was a real threat going forward. We've lost probably 80 per cent of our goals out of the team with Luis [Suarez] going and Dan [Sturridge's injury]."

"We can't keep going on about it but it is an item as to why we're not getting so many goals," Rodgers concluded.