Slot Provides No Excuses and Vows to Plot Route From Slump
Liverpool's head coach stated he had to “look at myself” after the Reds suffered a sixth defeat in seven English top-flight matches at home to Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would discover a solution from the champions’ slump.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, delivered the largest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their history as the Merseyside club slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 matches in all competitions. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and the home side argued the defender's opener ought to have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City prior to the national team pause. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.
“Nobody wants to listen to me now talking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I ought to examine myself first and my squad, but it does show you how a score can change the flow of a match. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Later we barely created any chances.
“Of course there is a path forward, particularly with the talented footballers we have. Regardless if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, where can we adjust?’ but that is something else from questioning your abilities.
“I want to stress I am accountable for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are victorious but also liable when you are losing. I can not come up with sufficient 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 made several attacking changes when pursuing the match. “It was the same on the road at Forest the previous campaign,” he remarked. “I took the French defender out and put on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was brave, currently it’s probably unwise.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League games by Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive top-flight games by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.
Slot said: “It was extremely poor. Playing at home, conceding 3-0 no matter which opponent you face is a very, very bad outcome. Unexpected if you consider the opening 30 minutes of the game. I haven’t seen us creating so much in the initial half-hour perhaps the entire campaign, and the first time they arrived in our box they scored.
“It did not happen at City, but in all other fixture we have been the controlling side and were capable to generate opportunities. Recently it is nearly constantly that we miss our opportunities and the ones we concede go in.”