Liverpool's Manager Offers No Excuses and Vows to Find Route Out of Malaise

Arne Slot declared he had to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool suffered a sixth loss in seven English top-flight games at home against Forest and insisted he would discover a way out of the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an 8th loss in eleven matches in all competitions. The most expensive domestic acquisition, the Swedish striker, was once more anonymous and the home side argued Murillo’s first goal should have been ruled out for comparable grounds to the captain's disallowed effort against Manchester City prior to the national team pause. But the manager admitted the responsibility rested with him and offered no alibis.

“No one wishes to listen to me now speaking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine my own role initially and my squad, but it demonstrates you how a score can change the flow of a game. Before I was just hoping for us to score a goal. Later we hardly created anything.

“Naturally there is a path forward, especially with the quality players we have. No matter if you win or are beaten when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘Where can we improve, where can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning your abilities.

“I wish to emphasise I am accountable for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are winning but also liable when you are losing. I can never provide enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from acceptable and I am responsible for that.”

Liverpool’s display unravelled as the coach introduced multiple offensive substitutions when chasing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he remarked. “I took the French defender off 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 unwise.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in back-to-back at Anfield league fixtures against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they suffered consecutive top-flight 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 encounter is a terrible result. Unexpected if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening half-hour maybe the entire season, and the initial occasion they arrived in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in every other game we have been the dominant team and were able to create opportunities. Lately it is nearly constantly that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we concede go in.”

James Humphrey
James Humphrey

A tech enthusiast and software developer with over a decade of experience in AI and web technologies, passionate about sharing knowledge.