Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Way From Malaise

Arne Slot stated he had to “examine my own performance” after the Reds endured a 6th defeat in 7 Premier League games on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would discover a way from the title holders' poor run.

Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, delivered the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club fell to an 8th defeat in 11 fixtures in all competitions. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was again anonymous and Liverpool contended the defender's first goal 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 stopped with him and made no excuses.

“Nobody wishes to hear me now talking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I ought to examine my own role first and my team, 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.

“Of course there is a way out, especially with the talented players we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, where can we make changes?’ but that is something else from doubting yourself.

“I wish to emphasise I am responsible for the current losses. You are answerable when you are winning but also liable when you are defeated. I can never come up with sufficient excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not good enough and I am responsible for that.”

The team's display unravelled as the coach introduced several offensive substitutions when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he said. “I substituted the French defender out and brought on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s probably unwise.”

Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures by Nottingham Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost back-to-back top-flight games by a three-goal scoreline was in 1965.

Slot commented: “It was very bad. Playing at home, conceding 3-0 regardless of which team you encounter is a very, very bad outcome. Unexpected if you consider the opening 30 minutes of the match. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the opening 30 minutes maybe the whole campaign, and the initial occasion they entered in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t at City, but in all other game we have been the dominant team and were able to generate opportunities. Lately it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the attempts we concede go in.”

Lori Reynolds
Lori Reynolds

A network engineer with over a decade of experience in designing scalable infrastructure solutions for enterprise clients.