Liverpool overcame a two-goal deficit to hold Brighton & Hove Albion.
Leandro Trossard gave the visitors a surprise early lead when he burst into the Reds’ penalty area on four minutes before sweeping home the opener.
The Belgian doubled his and the Seagulls’ tally less than a quarter of an hour later after good work by Danny Welbeck allowed him to drill past Alisson.
Roberto Firmino reduced the deficit for Jurgen Klopp’s side when he turned home into an empty net from a Mohamed Salah cutback on 35 minutes.
Firmino grabbed a brace less than 10 minutes into the second half after Luis Diaz teed the Brazil international to cut inside and fire a coolly-taken finish.
Liverpool finally took the lead as Robert Sanchez flapped at Trent Alexander-Arnold’s corner, which was turned into the Brighton net by Adam Webster.
But Trossard levelled up the game and claimed his hat-trick with just six minutes remaining, pouncing at the far post to beat Alisson in The Kop’s net.
Here were the key talking points from Anfield:
Reds rally but still feeling league lull
Rhythm is a phrase which Jurgen Klopp uses liberally as Liverpool manager.
Its presence, or lack of, has become the catch-all term for why his side are either hitting a familiar stride or struggling to recapture those former glories.
Nearly a month without Premier League action clearly belonged to the latter, with fixture cancellations and an international break disrupting their flow.
The Reds’ only competitive involvement since the Merseyside derby, a full four weeks ago, has come strictly in the Champions League’s group stage.
While those continental exploits kept things ticking over to a fashion, the total absence of domestic participation had clearly left a mark against Brighton.
A spirited second-half performance salvaged respectability but there was no denying that they looked noticeably off the pace either side of the interval.
Yet a truncated schedule only tells half the story of Liverpool’s season, with this result seeing them drop 11 points from seven opening league games.
Little wonder, then, that most of those in red shirts hastened their exit from the Anfield turf once the final whistle sounded on a forgettable afternoon.
Seagulls deepen Klopp’s defensive woes
This game saw Leandro Trossard become the first opposing player to score at least two goals in an Anfield league encounter since Ilkay Gundogan in 2021.
That 4-1 pummelling by Manchester City proved to be a watershed moment in Liverpool’s season; something which Brighton’s latest visit also delivered.
Klopp recently admitted that his side had not defended well in the matches prefacing the Seagulls’ maiden outing under new manager Roberto De Zerbi.
But this latest outing did little to inspire confidence that those backline blunders are nearing an end after falling two goals behind in under 20 minutes.
It could have been more, in truth, were it not for Alisson’s sharp reflexes to deny Trossard and Danny Welbeck in quick succession early in the first half.
The ease with which Welbeck later punished Trent Alexander-Arnold for a light touch deep in his own half will only intensify scrutiny on the right-back.
Contrary to what England-centric voices may claim, the 23-year-old is not the root cause of Liverpool’s defensive woes but, similarly, does not ease them.
Klopp’s words only stretch so far in insulating Alexander-Arnold from his army of critics yet his cohorts in that back four are not merely guilty by association.
No room for error in defining month
Even before they slumped to consecutive Premier League stalemates, October was already shaping up to be a make-or-break month for Liverpool’s season.
That dismal run of form, however, now leaves Klopp’s erstwhile mentality monsters facing an unenviable challenge of eight games in the next 27 days.
Coming through a hat-trick of Champions League group encounters is the least of their worries when stacked against the upcoming domestic tests.
Back-to-back Premier League clashes with leaders Arsenal and reigning champions Manchester City are less than ideal in the midst of this malaise.
West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds United, equally, offer little in the way of reprieve with all three battling to get their own seasons back on track.
Margins for error are now at zero for Liverpool if they are to attain what Klopp constitutes as the primary target in securing Champions League qualification.
Another slip-up could prove costly as the conversation rapidly shifts from the dream of Anfield being in the thick of a title race to focusing on fourth place.