Arne Slot has put the blame on himself for Liverpool’s hapless run and insisted he takes full responsibility for the Premier League champions’ title defence falling apart.
Nottingham Forest recorded their finest win of the Sean Dyche era as the former Everton boss saw his new team win 3-0 with goals from imperious defender Murillo, Nicolo Savona and Morgan Gibbs-White.
It was an eighth defeat in 11 for Liverpool who are now in the bottom half of the table with a negative goal difference and could end the weekend 11 points behind leaders Arsenal.
And Slot said: ‘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.
‘It is my responsibility if we win or lose. What I also see is the team – and the fans stayed until the end – keep on trying until the end. It wasn’t at Manchester City (a fortnight ago) but in every other game we have played we have been the dominant team and were able to create chances.
Slot has taken full responsibility for the Premier League champions’ title defence falling apart
It was an eighth defeat in 11 for Liverpool who are now in the bottom half of the table with a negative goal difference and could end the weekend 11 points behind leaders Arsenal
‘Lately, almost constantly, we miss our chances and the ones that go that we conceded – that will not continue all season. But we need to have that moment of energy, scoring a goal. If you are playing well and score a goal to go 1-0 up the other team (gets deflated).
‘But the opposite thing happened… they got a big energy boost from scoring 1-0. I see a lot of things where in a normal situation the result would have been different but we are now in a difficult situation and you need to do even more when things are not going in your favour.’
Forest’s first goal was controversial because winger Dan Ndoye was in the line of sight of goalkeeper Alisson when Murillo scored, similar to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed header at Manchester City a fortnight ago.
But Slot said: ‘No one wants to hear from me now talking about referee decisions if you lose 3-0 at home to Forest. 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.’
Meanwhile, Dyche was delighted with his team’s performance and said the ‘basics’ won the game for Forest.
‘They worked very hard this week (in training), I still have to get them how I like them,’ he said. ‘I keep it very simple. The basics will never go out of fashion for me.
‘Last year (when Forest won 1-0 at Anfield) this club used it as a catalyst. Of course it is to be enjoyed, it is for the fans and the players we have to go again. Everything is not solved but it is a good strong marker.
‘(We did) the hard yards, the ugly side of the game to stay focused on what the job is. I thought that was excellent. I changed the tactical side, we are not passing short, we are going long.. I thought we mixed it tactically. That is credit to the players.’
