Liverpool's Manager Offers No Excuses and Pledges to Plot Route From Malaise
Arne Slot stated he needed to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool endured a 6th loss in 7 English top-flight matches at home to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would find a solution from the champions’ slump.
Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest win at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as Liverpool slipped to an 8th defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again anonymous and Liverpool argued the defender's opener ought to have been ruled out for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort against City before the national team pause. But the manager admitted the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.
“No one wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest,” stated the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine myself initially and my squad, but it does show you how a goal can alter the momentum of a match. Earlier I was just hoping for us to net a strike. Later we hardly created any chances.
“Of course there is a way out, especially with the talented footballers we have. No matter if you win or lose when you look back you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is something else from doubting yourself.
“I want to emphasise I am responsible for the present defeats. You are answerable when you are winning but also responsible when you are defeated. I can never come up with enough reasons 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 attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the identical away at Nottingham Forest last season,” he remarked. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. Then it was courageous, currently it’s probably stupid.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures against Nottingham Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive top-flight games by a three-goal margin was in the mid-60s.
The manager said: “It was very bad. Playing on home soil, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a terrible outcome. Unexpected if you look at the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening 30 minutes perhaps the entire campaign, and the initial occasion they entered in our box they found the back of the net.
“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in every other fixture we have been the dominant team and were able to create opportunities. Recently it is nearly constantly that we fail to convert our opportunities and the ones we allow go in.”