Liverpool's Manager Provides No Excuses and Pledges to Find Route From Malaise

Liverpool's head coach declared he needed to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool suffered a sixth loss in 7 Premier League games at home against Forest and affirmed he would discover a solution from the title holders' slump.

Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their history as Liverpool slipped to an eighth loss in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was once more anonymous and the home side contended Murillo’s opener ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City prior to the international break. But Slot admitted the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.

“No one wishes to hear me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I ought to look at myself first and my team, but it does show you how a score can change the flow of a match. Before I was just hoping for us to score a goal. Afterwards we hardly created any chances.

“Of course there is a path forward, especially with the quality footballers we have. Regardless if you win or are beaten when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is different from doubting your abilities.

“I wish to stress I am accountable for the current defeats. You are answerable when you are victorious but also responsible when you are defeated. I can not come up with enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not good enough and I am responsible for that.”

The team's performance fell apart as Slot made multiple attacking changes when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he remarked. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and brought on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was brave, now it’s probably unwise.”

Liverpool last lost back-to-back home league fixtures against Forest in 1963. The last time they lost back-to-back top-flight matches by a three-goal scoreline was in the mid-60s.

The manager said: “It was extremely poor. Playing at home, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you encounter is a terrible outcome. Unexpected if you look at the opening 30 minutes of the game. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the opening 30 minutes perhaps the whole campaign, and the initial occasion they arrived in our penalty area they scored.

“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in every other game we have been the dominant side and were able to create chances. Recently it is almost constantly that we fail to convert our opportunities and the ones we allow go in.”

Tara Stevens DVM
Tara Stevens DVM

Elara is a seasoned career coach and writer, passionate about empowering professionals to reach their full potential through actionable advice.