Slot Offers No Excuses and Pledges to Plot Route Out of Malaise

Liverpool's head coach stated he needed to “examine my own performance” following the Reds suffered a 6th loss in seven English top-flight games on their own turf to Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would find a way out of the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the largest victory at Anfield in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again anonymous and the home side argued the defender's opener should have been disallowed for similar reasons to the captain's disallowed effort versus Manchester City before the international break. But Slot admitted the responsibility rested with him and offered no alibis.

“No one wishes to hear me now speaking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should examine myself initially and my team, but it demonstrates you how a goal can alter the momentum of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Later we hardly generated anything.

“Naturally there is a way out, particularly with the talented footballers we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you look back you are always thinking: ‘In which areas can we do better, where can we make changes?’ but that is something else from doubting yourself.

“I want to stress I am accountable for the present losses. You are responsible when you are winning but also responsible when you are losing. I can not provide sufficient reasons for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.”

Liverpool’s display unravelled as the coach introduced several offensive substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he said. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and brought on the Portuguese forward and he scored immediately to make it 1-1. At that time it was brave, currently it’s likely stupid.”

Liverpool last lost two successive home Premier League games by Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they suffered back-to-back top-flight games by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.

Slot commented: “It was extremely poor. Playing at home, losing 3-0 no matter which opponent you face is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising if you look at the first half-hour of the game. I did not witness us creating so many chances in the opening half-hour maybe the entire season, and the initial occasion they entered in our box they found the back of the net.

“It did not happen at City, but in all other game we have been the controlling team and were able to generate chances. Lately it is almost constantly that we fail to convert our opportunities and the attempts we concede find the net.”

Christian Atkins
Christian Atkins

Maya Chen is a front-end developer and UI designer passionate about creating efficient, accessible web frameworks and sharing insights on modern CSS techniques.