Brendan Rodgers has admitted Liverpool “cannot even entertain talk” of mounting a title challenge again until they recover their poise, with last season’s runners-up having endured a third damaging defeat in their first five games for only the second time since the top flight was revamped as the Premier League

The visitors were overrun by two early goals from a vibrant West Ham United early on at the Boleyn Ground and, once they had gathered some late momentum, were caught on the break by Morgan Amalfitano’s third. The loss was suffered with six senior players – most notably Daniel Sturridge and Glen Johnson – currently injured, but Rodgers admitted his players had fallen below the standards set last term in slipping to a second successive league defeat.

“We were nowhere near the standard,” he said. “Lots of elements of our game have been very good in the last few seasons, but it’s not quite happening for us at the moment. We have a lot of work to do, but that was disappointing. We showed our potential in the Tottenham Hotspur game [won 3-0] when we had key players fit, and showed the quality and intensity of the team. But, even with those guys out, we should still be better than we were today.

Steven Gerrard leads his Liverpool team off the field after the game. Photograph: Michael Zemanek/BPI/REX

“We’ve set a new expectancy at the club and we have to deal with that now. It’s a club people want to beat, but we’re even more so now we’re in the Champions League. It’s something we need to deal with. I’ve always said we’re a work in progress – we probably arrived early last year – and people will look at Chelsea and Manchester City as the two squads set up for the title race, but there are no limits to what we want to achieve at Liverpool.

“We just want to keep moving forward. But we’ve lost three of our last five, so we can’t even entertain talk of that until we get some sort of consistency. We have to get back to what we were doing in the Spurs game.”

Brendan Rodgers watches his side at Upton Park. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty

Rodgers has made no secret of the difficulties in integrating a clutch of new signings – bought with Luis Suárez sold to Barcelona and with the extra demands of the Champions League in mind – with seven new arrivals playing some part here. They are still striving to adjust to new surroundings, though there is little time available for them to find their feet. “We have to deal with the expectation,” said the Liverpool manager, who will welcome Everton to Anfield on Saturday “We can’t run away from it. It wasn’t anywhere near what I’d expect, and that intensity just wasn’t there in our game. So we’ll have to try and get better.”