🔗 Share this article

Arne Slot declared he needed to “look at myself” after Liverpool suffered a sixth defeat in seven English top-flight matches at home against Forest and insisted he would discover a solution from the title holders' poor run.

Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, delivered the biggest win at Liverpool's stadium in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an 8th defeat in eleven matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, the Swedish striker, was once more unnoticeable and the home side contended the defender's opener should have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort versus City before the national team pause. But the manager conceded the responsibility rested with him and offered no alibis.

“No one wants to listen to me now talking about officiating calls if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should look at myself initially and my team, but it does show you how a goal can alter the momentum of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to net a goal. Later we barely generated any chances.

“Naturally there is a path forward, particularly with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you win or are beaten when you look back you are always thinking: ‘In which areas can we improve, where can we make changes?’ but that is different from questioning yourself.

“I want to emphasise 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 enough excuses for us to have the results we have. That is not good enough and I am to blame for that.”

The team's performance unravelled as Slot made several offensive changes when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he remarked. “I substituted the French defender off and put on [Diogo] Jota and he scored immediately to equalize at 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s probably stupid.”

The Anfield side last lost two successive at Anfield league games against Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The most recent occasion they lost back-to-back league games by a three-goal margin was in 1965.

Slot said: “It was very bad. Competing on home soil, conceding 3-0 regardless of which team you encounter is a terrible outcome. Surprising if you look at the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us producing so many chances in the initial half-hour perhaps the entire season, and the first time they arrived in our box they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t at City, but in every other fixture we have been the controlling team and were capable to create opportunities. Lately it is nearly consistently that we fail to convert our chances and the ones we allow go in.”