Liverpool's Manager Offers No Excuses and Vows to Find Way Out of Slump
Arne Slot declared he had to “examine my own performance” after Liverpool endured a 6th defeat in seven Premier League matches at home to Forest and affirmed he would find a solution from the champions’ slump.
Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, delivered the largest victory at Anfield in their club records as Liverpool fell to an eighth defeat in 11 matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was once more anonymous and the home side argued the defender's opener ought to have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort versus City prior to the international break. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.
“No one wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should examine myself initially and my team, but it does show you how a score can alter the momentum of a match. Before I was just waiting for us to net a goal. Afterwards we hardly generated anything.
“Naturally there is a way out, especially with the talented players we have. No matter if you triumph or are beaten when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, 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 responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not provide 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 introduced multiple offensive substitutions when chasing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net immediately to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s likely stupid.”
The Anfield side last lost back-to-back home Premier League fixtures against Forest in 1963. The last time they lost back-to-back top-flight games by a three-goal margin was in 1965.
The manager said: “It was very bad. Competing at home, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a very, very bad outcome. Unexpected if you look at the opening 30 minutes of the match. I haven’t seen us producing so much in the initial half-hour maybe the whole season, and the first time they entered in our box they scored.
“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in all other fixture we have been the controlling side and were capable to create opportunities. Recently it is almost constantly that we miss our opportunities and the ones we allow go in.”