🔗 Share this article

Liverpool's head coach declared he needed to “examine my own performance” following Liverpool suffered a sixth defeat in seven Premier League matches on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a solution out of the champions’ poor run.

Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest win at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as Liverpool slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and the home side contended the defender's opener should have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against Manchester City prior to the international break. But Slot admitted the responsibility stopped with him and made no excuses.

“Nobody wants to hear me now speaking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest,” stated the Reds' boss. “I ought to examine myself first and my team, but it does show you how a goal can alter the flow of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Afterwards we barely created anything.

“Of course there is a path forward, especially with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you win or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, where can we make changes?’ but that is different from doubting yourself.

“I want to emphasise I am accountable for the present defeats. You are responsible when you are victorious but also liable when you are losing. I can never come up with enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not acceptable and I am responsible for that.”

The team's performance unravelled as the coach made several offensive changes when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Forest last season,” he remarked. “I took the French defender out and brought on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to equalize at 1-1. Then it was brave, now it’s probably unwise.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in two successive at Anfield Premier League games against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The last time they suffered back-to-back league games by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.

The manager said: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, losing 3-0 no matter which opponent you encounter is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising if you look at the first half-hour of the game. I did not witness us creating so many chances in the opening 30 minutes maybe the entire campaign, and the first time they arrived in our penalty area they scored.

“It did not happen at City, but in every other fixture we have been the controlling team and were able to create chances. Recently it is nearly consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we allow go in.”