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Watfords stunning demolition of Liverpool left plenty of questions: should Jrgen Klopp adapt his approach? Has the team grown complacent? Why have they looked so lethargic since the winter break? Does missing out on going a full season unbeaten drop this teams place in the Premier League pantheon?

But as evidence by Klopps post-match words, there are some positives, if you look close enough.

The performance was awful. But in terms of Liverpools overall goals this season, the defeat might have come at the perfect time. The team has looked tight and antsy since they returned from the break. The weight of all the records and history was clearly on their minds.

I see it rather positive, Klopp said post-game. Because from now on we can play free football again. We dont have to defend or try to get the record we just can try to win football games again.

The idea of free football was a deliberate phrase. Liverpools front three were free to roam and move on Saturday, but it had little impact. Roberto Firmino dawdled out to the right without any real intent. Sadio Man cut further and further inside looking for a kick of the ball, clogging Mohamed Salah natural habit. As so often is the case, the Egyptian maestro switched places with Firmino, hunting for a sight of the ball inside. But the supply line was cut-off, with Man routinely jamming his space dragging defenders into Salahs path.

According to Understat's expected goals metric, it was the worst attacking performance from any game during Klopps tenure as Liverpool manager just 0.2 xG, a pitiful return against a side 19th in the league. They mustered only two shots in the box. Two.

The players were moving and rotating positions, but not with any kind of purpose. Their shape became discombobulated, disorganized, and made life easier for the Watford defence.

An embarrassing drubbing might be enough to blow all those cobwebs away. Fortunately for the team, they have a game on Tuesday night against a Chelsea side that is rank average without the ball.

Frank Lampards team plays an expansive, wide-open style, nothing like the past four games that have given Klopps team bother. It is just the sort of game that should give Liverpool's front-three the space to do what they do better than any attacking trio on Earth.

Re-focusing on cup competitions rather than an unbeaten season is a net-win. Winning a treble is more difficult, more meaningful than going unbeaten over the span of the season. The Arsenal Invincibles were an exceptional team. But it's interesting to note that that achievement is often cited by fans and media members more so than the players themselves. It's an extraordinary achievement, but drawing 12 games and losing in the FA Cup and Champions League quarter-finals puts a slight dampener on the thing. If they were really invincible, they would have waxed the floor with opponents in Europe, too.

A defeat right before an FA Cup game allows Klopp to shift his focus to the knock-out tournaments. The European Cup is obviously the biggest prize, and building towards the Atltico game should be the major focus of all at the club, coaches and players. But the FA Cup is there for the taking. All other sides, except Man City, have something to fight for in the league. Only Liverpool and City are able to tweak their squads in such a way that they can be at full during the knockout rounds of the cup and in Europe.

Klopp has to take advanatge. It was in vogue, including from this very writer, to call on the manager to play the kids after they found their way past Shrewsbury in early February. They earned the right to play at Stamford Bridge, the idea went. But that's gone now. Klopp has to put out his strongest, fittest XI on Tuesday. "We want to strike back straight away and we will," Virgil van Dijk said after the Watford game, a rallying cry that should be echoed by all within the club.

Winning a treble is the most impressive team a club side can do. Saturday's defeat stung, but that doesn't lessen the team's chances to pull off something that's never before been done in the club's history. Klopp has toyed with the FA Cup before treated it as lesser than. Now, it's time to take it every bit as seriously as a Champions League knockout game.

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Watford defeat allows Jrgen Klopp to take FA Cup seriously, and to focus on a historic treble - Liverpool.com