🔗 Share this article

Arne Slot declared he needed to “look at myself” after the Reds suffered a 6th defeat in 7 Premier League matches on their own turf to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a solution out of the title holders' poor run.

Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, delivered the largest victory at Liverpool's stadium in their history as Liverpool slipped to an eighth defeat in eleven fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, the Swedish striker, was again unnoticeable and Liverpool contended the defender's opener should have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City before the international break. But Slot conceded the responsibility rested with him and offered no alibis.

“No one wishes to hear me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I ought to look at myself first and my team, but it demonstrates you how a score can change the flow of a game. Before I was just hoping for us to score a strike. Afterwards we hardly generated anything.

“Naturally there is a way out, especially with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, where can we adjust?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.

“I wish to emphasise I am accountable for the current defeats. You are answerable when you are victorious but also responsible when you are losing. I can not come up with sufficient excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.”

The team's display unravelled as the coach made several offensive substitutions when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I took the French defender out and put on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was brave, currently it’s probably unwise.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in two successive at Anfield league games by Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost back-to-back league matches by a three-goal scoreline was in 1965.

The manager commented: “It was very bad. Competing on home soil, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a very, very bad result. Surprising if you look at the first half-hour of the match. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the initial half-hour maybe the whole campaign, and the initial occasion they arrived in our box they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in all 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 attempts we concede go in.”