Liverpool's Manager Offers Zero Justifications and Pledges to Plot Way Out of Malaise

Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool suffered a 6th defeat in 7 English top-flight matches on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would discover a way out of the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone prior to the match, delivered the largest victory at Anfield in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an 8th defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and the home side argued Murillo’s opener should have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort versus City before the international break. But the manager admitted the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.

“Nobody wishes to listen to me now talking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should look at my own role initially and my squad, but it does show you how a score can alter the flow of a match. Before I was just waiting for us to score a strike. Afterwards we hardly created anything.

“Naturally there is a way out, particularly with the talented footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘In which areas can we improve, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.

“I want to stress I am accountable for the present defeats. You are responsible when you are winning but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not come up with sufficient reasons for us to have the results we have. That is not acceptable and I am to blame for that.”

Liverpool’s display fell apart as the coach made multiple offensive changes when pursuing the match. “It was the identical on the road at Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I took the French defender off and brought on [Diogo] Jota and he scored straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s probably unwise.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in back-to-back at Anfield Premier League fixtures against Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they lost back-to-back top-flight matches by a three-goal scoreline was in the mid-60s.

Slot 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 consider the first half-hour of the game. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the initial half-hour perhaps the entire season, and the first time they entered in our box they scored.

“It wasn’t at City, but in every other game we have been the controlling team and were able to generate chances. Recently it is nearly consistently that we fail to convert our opportunities and the ones we concede go in.”