Arne Slot said he needed to “look at myself” after Liverpool suffered a sixth defeat in seven Premier League games at home to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would find a way out of the champions’ slump.
Forest, in the relegation zone before kick-off, produced the biggest win at Anfield in their history as Liverpool slipped to an eighth loss in 11 matches in all competitions. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was again anonymous and Liverpool argued Murillo’s opener should have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort against Manchester City before the international break. But Slot admitted the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.
“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 look at myself first and my team, but it does show you how a goal can change the momentum of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Afterwards we hardly created anything.
“Of course there is a way out, especially with the quality players we have. No matter if you win or lose when you look back you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, where can we adjust?’ but that is something else from doubting yourself.
“I want to emphasise I am responsible for the current losses. You are responsible when you are winning but also responsible when you are losing. I can never come up with enough excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.”
Liverpool’s performance unravelled as Slot made several attacking substitutions when chasing the game. “It was the same away at Forest last season,” he said. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and put on [Diogo] Jota and he scored straight away to make it 1-1. Then it was brave, now it’s probably stupid.”
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Liverpool last lost two successive home league games against Forest in 1963. The last time they lost back-to-back league games by a three-goal margin was in 1965.
Slot said: “It was very bad. Playing at home, losing 3-0 no matter which team you face is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you look at the first half-hour of the game. I haven’t seen us creating so much in the opening half-hour maybe the whole season, and the first time they arrived in our box they scored.
“It wasn’t at City, but in every other game we have been the dominant team and were able to create chances. Lately it is almost constantly that we miss our chances and the ones we concede go in.”
