Jurgen Klopp believes the quality of Antonio Conte's defence at Chelsea is tough enough to give "every team in the world" problems.
Conte steered his new team Chelsea to a 1-0 win over Liverpool in the International Champions Cup in California on Thursday morning courtesy of a Gary Cahill headed goal in the 10th minute.
Roberto Firmino threatened to restore parity with his strike soon after, but his goal was ruled out for offside as Chelsea put in a superb defensive performance via their back line of Ola Aina at right-back, Cesar Azpilicueta at left-back and Cahill and John Terry in central defence to secure their third pre-season win in a row.
Conte's work at improving Chelsea's defence will come as welcome news to fans, who had to endure the agony of watching on last season as the Blues let in 53 goals and lost 12 games to end in 10th place in the Premier League table.
And Klopp admits Chelsea's defence was so good at the Rose Bowl that it would hand any team trouble in breaking down.
"About the game, when a team with the quality of Chelsea defends so deep then every team in the world will have a little problem," Klopp told Liverpool's official website.
"And we had the problem that 80 per cent of our passing game was absolutely OK, 20 per cent not.
"And this 20 per cent, most of the time, was the last pass. The last pass is a very important pass.
"So we had a long way to go back to defend and not create real chances. We had to run a lot to avoid this.
"We had to play football and we had more ball possession against a really good side.
"We could have scored, we didn’t – 1-0, that’s what we have to accept."
