Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Route From Slump
Liverpool's head coach declared he needed to “look at myself” after Liverpool endured a 6th defeat in seven English top-flight games at home against Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a solution from the title holders' poor run.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, produced the largest victory at Anfield in their history as the Merseyside club fell to an eighth loss in 11 matches in every tournament. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was again unnoticeable and Liverpool contended Murillo’s opener ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal versus Manchester City before the international break. But the manager admitted the responsibility stopped with him and made no excuses.
“No one wants to hear me now speaking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I ought to look at myself initially and my squad, but it demonstrates you how a goal can alter the flow of a match. Earlier I was just hoping for us to net a goal. Afterwards we barely created anything.
“Naturally there is a path forward, especially with the quality footballers we have. Regardless if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, where can we make changes?’ but that is different from questioning your abilities.
“I want to stress I am accountable for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are winning but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not come up with enough reasons for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not acceptable and I am to blame for that.”
The team's display fell apart as Slot made several attacking changes when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Forest last season,” he said. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and brought on the Portuguese forward and he scored immediately to equalize at 1-1. Then it was courageous, now it’s probably stupid.”
The Anfield side last lost two successive at Anfield Premier League games against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they suffered back-to-back league matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.
Slot commented: “It was very bad. Playing on home soil, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising if you consider the opening 30 minutes of the game. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening 30 minutes maybe the entire season, and the initial occasion they entered in our penalty area 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. Lately it is nearly consistently that we miss our opportunities and the attempts we concede find the net.”