Arne Slot backed himself to drag Liverpool out of their ruinous run of form, insisting that the repetitive sequence of events behind their damning collapse “will not continue throughout the whole season.”
The Dutch boss didn’t appear to be quite so defiant while he was in the process of watching Nottingham Forest stroll to a deserved 3–0 victory at Anfield on Saturday afternoon. After finding themselves on the wrong side of the same scoreline against Manchester City earlier this month, it is the first time Liverpool have suffered consecutive league defeats by three goals or more since April 1965.
In the immediate aftermath of Forest’s third goal, swiped into the bottom corner by Morgan Gibbs-White with 12 minutes remaining, Slot stood on the touchline open mouthed. Many in the crowd would have missed this gormless admission of defeat as a significant proportion took that goal as their cue to head for the exit.
Slot had gathered himself enough to take responsibility for Liverpool’s sixth reverse in seven league games, but insisted that all was not lost just yet.
“Yes of course there’s a way out, especially with the quality players we have,” he told his postmatch press conference. “Lately, it’s almost constantly that we miss our chances and the ones we concede go in,” he sighed. “That will not continue throughout the whole season.”
“The first time they arrived in our box they scored,” Slot added. “It’s a difficult cocktail to drink if you miss your own chances and almost every time you concede a chance, the ball goes in.”
There have been plenty of setbacks for Liverpool to swallow already this season.
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Liverpool enjoyed a strong opening 30 minutes, rattling off eight shots as they penned the visitors back. “I hadn’t seen us create that much in an opening half hour maybe all season,” Slot would later muse. Yet, they were undone once again by a set piece.
Putting the controversy of the offside call interlaced with Murillo’s opener to one side, Slot must be gravely concerned by how susceptible his side have suddenly become to set pieces. The centre back’s crisp finish from a corner was the ninth goal Liverpool have conceded from a dead-ball scenario across the opening 12 games of the season—as many as they mustered across the entirety of the 2024–25 campaign.
Mohamed Salah, whose defensive work rate has been a thorny issue this season, was oddly tasked with marking Murillo for the corner and unsurprisingly lost his man. The Egyptian winger once again failed to track Neco Williams’s run 33 seconds after the half-time interval, watching on as the buccaneering fullback teed up fellow defender Nicolò Savona for Forest’s second goal.
Liverpool’s history, especially at Anfield, is inextricably tied to great comebacks, yet there seemed little chance of any turnaround on Saturday once Forest took the lead. That should not have been a surprise.
Slot’s defending champions have fallen behind in six Premier League matches this season and lost all six. Only rock-bottom Wolverhampton Wanderers have a worse record in this regard this season.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Arne Slot Sends Defiant Message As Liverpool Suffer 60-Year Slump.
