Slot Offers No Excuses and Pledges to Find Way From Malaise
Arne Slot stated he had to “look at myself” following the Reds suffered a 6th loss in seven Premier League games on their own turf against Forest and insisted he would discover a way from the champions’ slump.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the largest victory at Anfield in their history as Liverpool slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in all competitions. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was once more unnoticeable and Liverpool contended Murillo’s opener should have been disallowed for comparable grounds to the captain's disallowed effort against Manchester City prior to the international break. But the manager admitted the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.
“No one wants to listen to me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest,” stated the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine myself first and my squad, but it demonstrates you how a goal can change the momentum of a game. Earlier I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Later we hardly created anything.
“Naturally there is a way out, particularly with the quality footballers we have. Regardless if you triumph or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, where can we adjust?’ but that is different from doubting yourself.
“I want to emphasise I am responsible for the current losses. You are answerable when you are victorious but also liable when you are defeated. I can not come up with sufficient excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am to blame for that.”
Liverpool’s performance fell apart as the coach made several offensive changes when chasing the game. “It was the identical away at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and put on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was brave, currently it’s probably stupid.”
Liverpool last lost back-to-back home league games against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they lost back-to-back top-flight matches by a three-goal margin was in the mid-60s.
The manager said: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, losing 3-0 no matter which opponent you face is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you look at the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us creating so many chances in the opening 30 minutes maybe the whole season, and the first time they arrived in our penalty area they found the back of the net.
“It wasn’t at City, but in every other game we have been the dominant side and were able to create opportunities. Recently it is nearly constantly that we miss our chances and the ones we allow find the net.”