Slot Provides No Excuses and Pledges to Find Route From Malaise
Liverpool's head coach stated he needed to “examine my own performance” after the Reds endured a 6th defeat in 7 English top-flight games at home to Forest and insisted he would find a way out of the title holders' slump.
Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, produced the largest victory at Anfield in their history as Liverpool slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was once more anonymous and Liverpool argued the defender's first goal should have been disallowed for similar reasons to the captain's chalked-off goal versus City before the international break. But the manager conceded the responsibility stopped with him and offered no alibis.
“No one wishes to hear me now talking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest,” stated the Liverpool head coach. “I ought to examine myself first and my team, but it demonstrates you how a score can alter the momentum of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Afterwards we barely created anything.
“Of course there is a way out, particularly with the talented footballers we have. Regardless if you triumph or are beaten when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.
“I want to stress I am accountable for the present losses. You are answerable when you are winning but also responsible when you are defeated. I can never provide enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from acceptable and I am responsible for that.”
Liverpool’s performance fell apart as the coach introduced multiple offensive substitutions when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and put on the Portuguese forward and he found the net immediately to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was courageous, currently it’s likely unwise.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive at Anfield Premier League games by Nottingham Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive top-flight matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.
Slot said: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, losing 3-0 no matter which opponent you face is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising 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 perhaps the entire season, and the initial occasion they entered in our box they scored.
“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in every other game we have been the controlling side and were capable to generate chances. Recently it is nearly consistently that we miss our chances and the attempts we allow find the net.”