Slot Offers No Excuses and Pledges to Find Route From Slump
Arne Slot declared he needed to “look at myself” after the Reds endured a sixth defeat in 7 English top-flight matches on their own turf to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a way from the champions’ slump.
Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the biggest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an 8th defeat in eleven matches in every tournament. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was once more anonymous and Liverpool contended Murillo’s opener ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort against City before the national team pause. But the manager admitted the buck rested with him and offered no alibis.
“No one wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I ought to look at my own role initially and my team, but it does show you how a goal can change 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 players we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning yourself.
“I wish to emphasise I am accountable for the current losses. You are responsible when you are victorious but also liable when you are defeated. I can not come up with enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.”
The team's display unravelled as Slot made several attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the same away 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. Then it was courageous, currently it’s likely unwise.”
Liverpool previously were defeated in back-to-back home league games by Forest in 1963. The last time they lost consecutive top-flight matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.
Slot said: “It was extremely poor. Playing at home, conceding 3-0 regardless of which opponent 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 much in the initial 30 minutes maybe the whole campaign, and the first time they arrived in our penalty area they scored.
“It wasn’t at City, but in every other fixture we have been the dominant team and were capable to create opportunities. Recently it is almost consistently that we miss our chances and the ones we concede find the net.”