Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Route From Slump
Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “examine my own performance” after the Reds endured a 6th loss in 7 English top-flight matches on their own turf against Forest and affirmed he would find a solution out of the title holders' poor run.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, produced the biggest victory at Anfield in their club records as Liverpool slipped to an 8th defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was once more unnoticeable and the home side argued Murillo’s opener ought to have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal versus City before the international break. But the manager admitted the responsibility rested with him and made no excuses.
“Nobody wants to listen to me now talking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine myself first and my squad, but it does show you how a score can change the momentum of a match. Earlier I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Afterwards we hardly created anything.
“Naturally there is a path forward, particularly with the quality players we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, where can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning yourself.
“I wish to emphasise I am responsible for the current losses. You are answerable when you are winning but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not come up with enough reasons for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not good enough and I am responsible for that.”
Liverpool’s display fell apart as Slot made multiple attacking substitutions when chasing the game. “It was the identical away at Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I took the French defender out and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he scored straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, currently it’s probably stupid.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures by Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they suffered consecutive top-flight matches by a 3-0 margin was in the mid-60s.
The manager commented: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, losing 3-0 no matter which opponent you encounter is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising if you look at the first half-hour of the game. I did not witness us producing so many chances in the initial half-hour perhaps the whole season, and the initial occasion they entered in our penalty area they scored.
“It wasn’t at City, but in every other game we have been the controlling side and were able to generate opportunities. Lately it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we allow go in.”