Slot Offers No Excuses and Pledges to Find Route From Slump
Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “examine my own performance” after Liverpool endured a sixth defeat in seven English top-flight matches at home against Forest and insisted he would find a solution out of the champions’ poor run.
Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, delivered the largest win at Liverpool's stadium in their history as Liverpool fell to an eighth loss in 11 matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, the Swedish striker, was again unnoticeable and the home side argued Murillo’s opener should have been ruled out for similar reasons to the captain's chalked-off goal against City before the international break. But Slot conceded the buck rested with him and made no excuses.
“No one wishes to hear me now speaking about officiating calls if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Nottingham Forest,” stated the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine myself initially and my team, but it does show you how a goal can alter the flow of a match. Before I was just hoping for us to score a goal. Afterwards we barely created any chances.
“Naturally there is a way out, particularly with the quality players we have. Regardless if you triumph or are beaten when you look back you are always considering: ‘In which areas can we do better, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is different from questioning your abilities.
“I wish to emphasise I am responsible for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are winning 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 not good enough and I am responsible for that.”
The team's performance unravelled as the coach introduced several attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the identical away at Forest last season,” he remarked. “I substituted the French defender off and put on [Diogo] Jota and he scored immediately to equalize at 1-1. Then it was brave, now it’s probably unwise.”
Liverpool last lost two successive home Premier League games by Nottingham Forest in 1963. The last time they lost back-to-back top-flight matches by a 3-0 margin was in 1965.
The manager commented: “It was extremely poor. Competing on home soil, conceding 3-0 regardless of which opponent you face is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you look at the first half-hour of the match. I haven’t seen us producing so many chances in the opening half-hour maybe the entire season, and the first time they entered in our box they scored.
“It wasn’t at City, but in every other fixture we have been the controlling side and were able to create chances. Lately it is nearly consistently that we miss our chances and the ones we concede find the net.”