Last season it was a one-off, a blip in an otherwise commanding Premier League home campaign, but Nottingham Forest’s latest victory at Liverpool was symptomatic of myriad problems engulfing the faltering champions. Arne Slot cannot pin this one on set-piece failings alone.
Sean Dyche’s team – and his gameplan – were exemplary as Forest recorded the biggest win at Anfield in their club’s history. Goals from Murillo, outstanding at both ends of the pitch, Nicolò Savona and the superb Morgan Gibbs-White deservedly lifted Forest out of the relegation zone on the foundation of a first clean sheet in 20 league games.
Liverpool, by contrast, dissolved into a mess as they slipped to an eighth defeat in 11 matches, a sixth loss in seven Premier League games, and into the bottom half of the table. Poor at set pieces, again, ineffective up front, again, with Alexander Isak withdrawn after 68 anonymous minutes, and defensively weak, they toiled in all departments to suffer a 3-0 defeat for the second game in succession. The last time Liverpool lost back-to-back league games by a three-goal margin was 1965. Memories of a strong first 30 minutes by Slot’s side, when Elliot Anderson made a brilliant headed block to deny Alexis Mac Allister on his goalline, were long gone by the time Gibbs-White put the game beyond doubt.
Slot threw on several forwards as Liverpool chased the game but the end result was chaos. His team were increasingly exposed and at no point did Forest appear vulnerable. “As a younger coach I might have thought: ‘This could change at any minute’,” admitted Dyche. “But sometimes your gut instinct is correct and I felt the way the team handled their performance got stronger as the game went on. We gave a really good performance tactically and that ensured they didn’t really deliver a serious threat.”
Liverpool’s head coach has regularly bemoaned his team’s vulnerability to counterattacks and set pieces this season. Forest opened the scoring courtesy of a combination of the two. Dyche was aghast when a promising break resulted only in a corner but Anderson’s delivery glanced off Virgil van Dijk to Murillo and the centre-half drilled an unstoppable finish into the far corner.
There were echoes of Van Dijk’s disallowed goal against Manchester City with Dan Ndoye standing in an offside position in front of Liverpool’s fit-again keeper Alisson. Unsurprisingly, the Liverpool captain was quick to point out the similarities to the referee, Andrew Madley. But unlike Andy Robertson at the Etihad Stadium, Ndoye made no obvious action in front of Alisson and the goal stood. “Ndoye was not in the line of vision of Alisson and did not make an action that impacted an opponent,” the Premier League stated.
Liverpool were reprieved by the match officials and video assistant referee two minutes later when Igor Jesus believed he had doubled Forest’s advantage. Ibrahima Konaté, who endured a dreadful afternoon, made an unconvincing attempt to clear an Ibrahim Sangaré cross and turned the ball against the Forest striker, who controlled before finding the bottom corner. Madley, in contact with his assistant, disallowed the goal for a handball that various replays struggled to confirm or deny. The Premier League stated: “The referee’s call of no goal was checked and confirmed by the VAR – with it deemed that Jesus accidentally handled the ball before scoring.” So much for the reprieve. Within seconds of the restart Mac Allister failed to cut out a pass towards Neco Williams inside the Liverpool area. The former Liverpool defender spun away from his marker and laid Forest’s second on a plate for fellow full-back Savona, who found Alisson’s top corner with ease.
Slot went for broke, replacing Konaté with Hugo Ekitiké after 55 minutes and partnering the France forward alongside Isak. That experiment lasted 13 minutes before Isak was withdrawn. His impact, or complete lack of it, is another problem for Slot to solve. Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha were also thrown into the Liverpool attack but carelessness in possession and solid Forest defending held the hosts comfortably at bay.
The visitors showed the finesse and penetration that Liverpool were lacking to seal a richly deserved win late on. Murillo’s cross-field ball found Omari Hutchinson on the right and the Forest substitute glided inside Robertson to bring a fine save out of Alisson. The rebound dropped to Gibbs-White, who swept a cool finish into the Kop goal from 12 yards. Many Liverpool fans started heading for the exits, belief well and truly gone.
