Slot Offers Zero Justifications and Pledges to Plot Way Out of Malaise
Arne Slot declared he had to “look at myself” following the Reds suffered a 6th loss in seven Premier League games on their own turf against Forest and affirmed he would find a way from the champions’ slump.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, produced the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in all competitions. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was again unnoticeable and Liverpool argued Murillo’s first goal ought to have been ruled out for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City prior to the international break. But Slot admitted the buck rested with him and offered no alibis.
“Nobody wishes to listen to me now speaking about officiating calls if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should examine myself first and my team, but it demonstrates you how a score can alter the momentum of a match. Before I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Afterwards we barely created any chances.
“Of course there is a path forward, particularly with the quality players we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you look back you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.
“I want to stress I am accountable for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not come up with sufficient excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.”
Liverpool’s performance unravelled as the coach introduced multiple offensive substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the same away at Forest last season,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and brought on the Portuguese forward and he scored immediately to equalize at 1-1. Then it was courageous, now it’s probably stupid.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in back-to-back home league fixtures by Forest in 1963. The last time they suffered back-to-back league matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.
Slot commented: “It was extremely poor. Competing at home, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us producing so much in the initial 30 minutes maybe the whole campaign, and the initial occasion they entered in our penalty area they found the back of the net.
“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in every other game we have been the dominant side and were capable to create opportunities. Recently it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we allow find the net.”