🔗 Share this article

Liverpool's head coach stated he had to “look at myself” after the Reds suffered a sixth defeat in seven English top-flight games on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and affirmed he would discover a solution from the champions’ poor run.

Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, produced the biggest win at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club fell to an 8th defeat in eleven matches in all competitions. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again anonymous and the home side argued the defender's opener ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to the captain's disallowed effort against Manchester City before the national team pause. But Slot conceded the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.

“Nobody wishes to listen to me now talking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” stated the Reds' boss. “I should look at myself first and my team, but it demonstrates you how a goal can change the momentum of a match. Earlier I was just waiting for us to net a goal. Afterwards we barely generated anything.

“Of course there is a path forward, especially with the talented footballers we have. No matter if you win or are beaten when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘In which areas can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is different from doubting yourself.

“I want to stress I am responsible for the current losses. You are responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are defeated. I can never provide sufficient excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from acceptable and I am to blame for that.”

Liverpool’s display fell apart as Slot introduced several offensive substitutions when chasing the match. “It was the same on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and brought on the Portuguese forward and he scored straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s probably stupid.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures by Forest in 1963. The last time they lost consecutive league games by a 3-0 scoreline was in the mid-60s.

Slot said: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, conceding 3-0 regardless of which team you encounter is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you look at the opening 30 minutes of the game. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the initial half-hour maybe the whole season, and the initial occasion they arrived in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It did not happen at City, but in every other game we have been the controlling team and were capable to generate chances. Lately it is almost consistently that we miss our chances and the ones we allow go in.”