Slot Provides No Excuses and Pledges to Find Way From Slump

Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “look at myself” after the Reds suffered a sixth defeat in 7 Premier League matches at home to Forest and insisted he would find a way out of the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, produced the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their history as the Merseyside club fell to an 8th defeat in 11 matches in all competitions. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and Liverpool contended the defender's first goal should have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal versus City prior to the national team pause. But the manager admitted the responsibility stopped with him and offered no alibis.

“Nobody wants to listen to me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” stated the Reds' boss. “I ought to look at my own role initially and my squad, but it does show you how a goal can change the momentum of a match. Before I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Later we hardly created any chances.

“Of course there is a way out, particularly with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or are beaten when you look back you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, where can we adjust?’ but that is something else from doubting your abilities.

“I wish to stress I am responsible for the current losses. You are responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are losing. I can never come up with enough excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am to blame for that.”

The team's performance unravelled as the coach made several offensive substitutions when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Forest last season,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and brought on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was brave, now it’s likely unwise.”

Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures against Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive league games by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.

Slot commented: “It was very bad. Competing at home, losing 3-0 regardless of which opponent you encounter is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening 30 minutes maybe the entire season, and the first time they arrived in our penalty area they scored.

“It did not happen at City, but in all other game we have been the dominant team and were capable to generate chances. Recently it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we concede find the net.”

Jeremy White
Jeremy White

Lena is a seasoned sports analyst with a passion for data-driven betting strategies and helping others make informed wagers.