by Liverpool head coach Arne Slot admits that their first defeat – a surprise 1-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest – was “a huge setback”.
After three wins without conceding a goal, his team struggled for 72 minutes before Callum Hudson-Odoi’s goal secured the visitors’ first win at Anfield since 1969.
“This is a big setback. Losing a home game is always a setback,” Slot said.
“Normally this team doesn’t finish in the top 10, so losing a game against them is a big disappointment, although today they were really well organised and structured.
“The only thing we had control over was possession because they played a lot of long balls. When you win the ball back you have to get past eleven players.
“We had a lot of possession, but were only able to create three or four really good scoring opportunities. That’s not nearly enough.”
“When you have so much possession and play so much in their half, we have to be much better. We lost the ball so often in simple situations.
“That’s the main story of the game – possession wasn’t good enough.”
This was Slot’s first game back after an international break and this seemed to show in the fact that passes went wrong with alarming regularity and the connections he had built up before were broken quite quickly.
Liverpool had ten players who played the full 90 minutes for their national teams in both games, with players such as Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz travelling back from South America.
However, this is nothing unusual and Slot did not look for excuses.
“It’s always difficult, but I don’t think it had anything to do with it,” he added.
“The players came back strong and today I saw a team that wanted to fight until the end. It had nothing to do with energy.”
“If you look at the goals we have scored so far, we have scored quite a few in transitional moments after winning the ball, but the other team (Forest) has often overcome our pressure with a lot of long balls.
“It wasn’t good enough today because too many individual performances in possession of the ball did not match the level I’m used to from these players.”
Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo was understandably pleased with the result, especially given the club had picked up just five points from their last 25 visits to Anfield.
“Many of our fans in the stadium today weren’t even born (when they last won), which shows how tough it is,” he said.
“I am very happy and proud of the players’ work, they have worked very hard.
“Overall, we knew how difficult the game would be. It’s about taking your chances.”
