London –

Arne Slot admitted Liverpool is still a work in progress after the spluttering Premier League champion suffered its third successive loss in a 2-1 defeat against Chelsea on Saturday.

For the second time in the space of a week, Liverpool's title defense was rocked by an agonizing last-gasp loss.

After losing in the final seconds at Crystal Palace last weekend, Slot's side stumbled again as Estevao Willian grabbed a dramatic stoppage-time winner at Stamford Bridge.

Moises Caicedo blasted Chelsea into an early lead with a superb long-range strike before Cody Gakpo equalized in the second half.

After starting the season with seven successive wins in all competitions, the Reds lost to Palace, then Galatasaray in the Champions League in the middle of the week before their latest flop in west London.

It is the first time that Liverpool has suffered three consecutive losses since 2023, when Jurgen Klopp was in charge for defeats against Bournemouth, Real Madrid and Manchester City.

For Slot, it was the first time in his managerial career to suffer three defeats in a row.

Even when Liverpool was winning at the start of the season, it needed several late goals to paper over the cracks in some creaky performances.

Slot believes his team is not yet functioning at full power because of its summer spending spree and the tragic death of Portugal forward Diogo Jota in a car crash in Spain.

Liverpool splashed out over £400 million ($539 million) on Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and a host of other players, but its two marquee signings have yet to shine.

"You are never close to your ideal," Slot said. "You have to work very hard to reach a certain level and then it's hard to maintain that level because you play against other quality teams.

"We had our changes in the summer. Players came in at different moments. In the last weeks there has hardly been any training time. We need to bring these players into our style.

"If we had a draw today we would have had a great start to the season if you take into account everything that happened in the summer with Liverpool."

Liverpool took 51 minutes to muster a shot on target against a Chelsea side missing a host of injured and suspended defenders.

The Blues, who lost in their previous two league games, have also been struggling to find their form, but Liverpool was unable to take advantage.

"Another disappointing loss, that is clear, said Slot, whose team hosts Manchester United in its next match after the international break. "We created three big chances in the first half, they only had one and they scored it.

"The second half performance I liked. We created more than enough to score more than one goal. There were periods where I thought we were going to win it.

"We didn't play the last pass well enough in those chances. It was end to end in the last few minutes. Either team could have won it, and Chelsea did."

Sweden striker Isak and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah once again failed to create a positive connection, but Slot is confident they will hit it off eventually.

"The more they play together the more they will connect," he said. "I had to take (Ibrahima) Konate off because he felt his quad. When Ryan (Gravenberch) started to play in that position we started to get our attacking players in much better positions.

"It wasn't about a disconnection between players. We had to do much better with our buildup and that's what we did in the second half."

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca did not attend the postmatch news conference after being sent off for his jubilant sprint down the touchline to celebrate Estevao's winner.

"He is ok," assistant Willy Caballero said. "Unfortunately he can't be here because of the red card, but he was so happy after the game.

"We have been holding our emotions for the last couple of weeks because we have been playing well and not winning. Today was really important."