Sympathy will be in short supply from Chris Hughton and his coaching staff at Colney this week after Liverpool capitalised on another Premier League horror show from the Canaries.

Hughton is experienced enough to realise the genuine optimism following his summer arrival is eroding at an alarming rate after this calamitous outing in front of their own fans so soon after a heavy opening day defeat at Fulham.

Luis Suarez and the Reds were ruthless in their execution at Carrow Road, in stark contrast to a brittleness in City's backline exposed within 67 seconds when Suarez pounced on Michael Turner's attempted clearance to fire past John Ruddy.

Turner and Javier Garrido inadvertently combined to gift the Uruguayan a second and Nuri Sahin's slot early in the second period effectively secured the league points for Brendan Rodgers.

Steve Morison and Grant Holt opened their goal accounts for the campaign, interspersed with another for Suarez and Steven Gerrard's deflected fifth – but no-one, least of all Hughton, was fooled by the final scoreline.

'We made poor errors and mistakes. We've taken a backward step today and that is really disappointing,' he said. 'It is a bad day for us, particularly when you consider we have not been shipping goals.

'We have been solid and the problem was getting goals we needed to win football matches. You can't give a clinical side like Liverpool the opportunities we did and expect to win a football match.

'The damage was already done by the time we got two back. The second goal is one that hurts us. They put us on the back foot with the early goal, but we had got ourselves back in the game and we were still in it. We then had to change it and there is always a risk that you leave yourself open.'

City's frustrated fan base made their feelings abundantly clear at the final whistle and Hughton was in no mood to offer his players' excuses.

'We'll make none for today or the points we have got so far, but we are in a period when we are not able to convert our chances,' he said. 'Suarez had four chances, missed a real good opportunity before he scored his second, and took three.

'Gerrard's fifth goal takes a deflection and goes in. That is how things seem to be for us. At this moment we are all still annoyed, disappointed and angry with the goals conceded.

'It doesn't matter where you are, home or away, against any team if you give them those opportunities you are going to lose a game.

'In the last four games the fans would have seen a team that was close (to that win). That is the nature of the game. They see a totally different performance here and they want to get behind us and they get as disappointed as we do.

'It is up to myself and the team to show the spirit we did after a poor first day of the season. We need to lift them and go again.'

Hughton conceded that City's shortcomings had been exposed by one of the best predators in the business.

'We knew beforehand that we were coming up against a Liverpool team in good form,' he said. 'They moved the ball well and you cannot give them the opportunities we did. They were clinical today, I have to say, and Suarez was at his most clinical but you cannot give them that time and space to score. That is the disappointment.

'We have conceded pivotal goals that really hurt us. The first one, so early in the game, and the second and third either side of half-time. The only positive is we managed to score two goals when it became really open. That is the only positive.'