Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Route From Slump
Arne Slot declared he had to “examine my own performance” following the Reds endured a 6th loss in 7 English top-flight matches at home to Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would find a solution from the title holders' poor run.
Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, delivered the largest win at Liverpool's stadium in their history as Liverpool slipped to an 8th loss in 11 matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was once more unnoticeable and Liverpool argued the defender's opener ought to have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal versus Manchester City before the national team pause. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.
“No one wants to hear me now speaking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should look at my own role initially and my squad, but it does show you how a goal can change the flow of a game. Earlier I was just hoping for us to net a strike. Afterwards we hardly generated anything.
“Naturally there is a path forward, particularly with the talented footballers we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘Where can we improve, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.
“I wish to stress I am responsible for the present defeats. You are responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are losing. I can not come up with enough reasons for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not good enough and I am to blame for that.”
Liverpool’s display unravelled as Slot made several attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the identical on the road at Forest the previous campaign,” he remarked. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and put on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s likely stupid.”
The Anfield side previously were defeated in back-to-back at Anfield league fixtures by Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The last time they suffered consecutive top-flight games by a 3-0 margin was in the mid-60s.
Slot commented: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, conceding 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 haven’t seen us producing so much in the opening 30 minutes maybe the whole campaign, and the first time they arrived in our box they found the back of the net.
“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in all other fixture we have been the controlling team and were able to generate chances. Lately it is almost constantly that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we concede go in.”