Slot Provides Zero Justifications and Pledges to Plot Route Out of Malaise
Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “examine my own performance” after the Reds suffered a sixth loss in seven Premier League games on their own turf against Nottingham Forest and insisted he would find a solution out of the title holders' poor run.
Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop before kick off, produced the largest win at Liverpool's stadium in their history as Liverpool slipped to an 8th defeat in 11 matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again anonymous and the home side contended the defender's first goal should have been ruled out for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City prior to the national team pause. But Slot conceded the responsibility rested with him and offered no alibis.
“No one wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine my own role initially and my team, but it demonstrates you how a score can change the flow of a game. Earlier I was just waiting for us to net a goal. Afterwards we hardly created anything.
“Of course there is a way out, especially with the quality footballers we have. Regardless if you triumph or are beaten when you look back you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, where 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 liable when you are losing. I can never provide enough reasons for us to have the results we have. That is not good enough and I am to blame for that.”
Liverpool’s display fell apart as Slot introduced several offensive substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the identical on the road at Forest last season,” 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 brave, now it’s likely stupid.”
Liverpool last lost back-to-back home league games by Nottingham Forest in 1963. The most recent occasion they lost consecutive league matches by a 3-0 margin was in 1965.
Slot commented: “It was very bad. Competing at home, conceding 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening 30 minutes maybe the whole campaign, and the initial occasion they arrived in our box they found the back of the net.
“It did not happen at City, but in every other game we have been the controlling side and were capable to create chances. Recently it is almost constantly that we fail to convert our chances and the attempts we concede find the net.”