Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Way From Slump
Arne Slot declared he had to “look at myself” after Liverpool suffered a 6th defeat in seven English top-flight games at home against Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would find a way out of the champions’ slump.
Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, produced the biggest victory at Anfield in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an eighth loss in eleven fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and the home side contended the defender's first goal ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to the captain's disallowed effort versus Manchester City before the national team pause. But Slot conceded the buck 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,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should look at my own role first and my squad, but it demonstrates you how a score can alter the flow of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to net a strike. Afterwards we hardly created anything.
“Naturally there is a way out, especially with the quality players we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘In which areas can we improve, where can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning yourself.
“I want to emphasise I am accountable for the current defeats. You are answerable when you are victorious but also responsible when you are losing. I can not come up with sufficient excuses for us to have the results we have. That is not acceptable and I am responsible for that.”
Liverpool’s performance unravelled as the coach introduced several attacking substitutions when chasing the match. “It was the identical away at Forest the previous campaign,” he remarked. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net immediately to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, currently it’s likely unwise.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures by Nottingham Forest in 1963. The last time they lost consecutive league games by a 3-0 margin was in 1965.
The manager commented: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, conceding 3-0 no matter which team you encounter is a terrible result. Surprising if you look at the opening 30 minutes of the game. I haven’t seen us producing so much in the initial half-hour perhaps 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 capable to generate chances. Recently it is nearly constantly that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we concede go in.”