Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Way Out of Malaise
Arne Slot declared he had to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool suffered a sixth loss in 7 English top-flight matches at home to Forest and affirmed he would discover a solution out of the title holders' slump.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest win at Anfield in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an eighth loss in eleven matches in every tournament. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was once more unnoticeable and Liverpool argued the defender's opener should have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City before the national team pause. But the manager admitted the responsibility stopped with him and offered no alibis.
“Nobody wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” stated the Reds' boss. “I ought to look at my own role initially and my team, but it does show you how a goal can alter the flow of a match. Before I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Later we hardly created anything.
“Naturally there is a path forward, especially with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘In which areas can we improve, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.
“I want to emphasise I am responsible for the current defeats. You are answerable when you are victorious but also responsible when you are losing. I can not provide enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from acceptable and I am responsible for that.”
The team's performance fell apart as the coach made multiple attacking changes when chasing the game. “It was the same on the road at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I took the French defender off and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he scored straight away to equalize at 1-1. Then it was courageous, now it’s likely unwise.”
Liverpool last lost two successive home league games against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The last time they lost consecutive league matches by a 3-0 margin was in 1965.
Slot said: “It was extremely poor. Competing at home, conceding 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a terrible outcome. Surprising if you consider the opening 30 minutes of the match. I did not witness us producing so much in the initial 30 minutes maybe the whole season, and the initial occasion they entered in our box 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 generate opportunities. Recently it is nearly constantly that we fail to convert our chances and the attempts we allow go in.”