Liverpool's Manager Provides No Excuses and Pledges to Find Route Out of Slump

Arne Slot stated he had to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool endured a sixth defeat in seven Premier League matches on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and insisted he would find a solution from the champions’ slump.

Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, produced the largest victory at Anfield in their history as Liverpool slipped to an 8th loss in eleven matches in every tournament. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was once more anonymous and the home side contended Murillo’s opener ought to have been ruled out for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City before the international break. But the manager conceded the responsibility stopped with him and made no excuses.

“Nobody wants to listen to me now speaking about officiating calls if you are defeated 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should look at my own role first and my team, but it does show you how a score can alter the momentum of a game. Earlier I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Afterwards we barely generated anything.

“Of course there is a way out, particularly with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from doubting yourself.

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

The team's performance unravelled as Slot introduced multiple attacking substitutions when chasing the match. “It was the same on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he remarked. “I took the French defender off and put on [Diogo] Jota and he scored immediately to make it 1-1. Then it was brave, currently it’s probably unwise.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures against Nottingham Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive top-flight matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.

Slot commented: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, conceding 3-0 no matter which opponent you encounter is a terrible outcome. Surprising if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us producing so many chances in the initial half-hour maybe the entire campaign, and the initial occasion they entered in our box they scored.

“It wasn’t at City, but in every other fixture we have been the controlling side and were able to create chances. Lately it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our opportunities and the attempts we concede go in.”

Thomas Rush
Thomas Rush

Felix is an automation engineer with over a decade of experience in designing and optimizing industrial control systems across Europe.