Liverpool head coach Arne Slot admits his first defeat – a shock 1-0 dwelling loss to Nottingham Forest – is “an enormous setback.”
After three victories with out conceding his aspect laboured for 72 minutes earlier than Callum Hudson-Odoi’s strike secured the guests’ first win at Anfield since 1969.
“It’s a large setback. If you happen to lose a house sport that’s all the time a setback,” Slot mentioned.
“Usually this workforce isn’t ending up in high 10, so in case you lose a sport towards them that’s an enormous disappointment, though they had been organised and structured very well right now.
“The one factor we had affect on was ball possession as a result of they performed plenty of lengthy balls, so in case you then take the ball again it’s worthwhile to go previous 11 gamers.
“We had plenty of ball possession however solely managed to create three or 4 fairly good possibilities. That’s by far not sufficient.
“In case you have a lot possession and play a lot of their half we must be significantly better, we misplaced the ball so many instances in easy conditions.
“That’s the primary story from the sport – ball possession was not ok.”
This was Slot’s first match after a world break and it appeared to indicate as passes went astray with alarming regularity, the connections constructed up beforehand changing into severed fairly shortly.
Liverpool had 10 gamers who performed the total 90 minutes in each video games for his or her worldwide groups and the likes of Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz travelled again from South America.
Nonetheless, that’s not out of the odd and Slot didn’t look to search out excuses.
“It’s all the time troublesome, however I don’t assume it had something to do with it,” he added.
“Gamers got here again robust and I noticed right now a workforce that needed to combat till the tip. That wasn’t to do with vitality.
“If you happen to take a look at the targets we scored till now, we scored fairly just a few from transition moments from profitable the ball again, however the different workforce (Forest) performed over our press loads with plenty of lengthy balls.
“It wasn’t ok right now as a result of too many particular person performances in ball possession had been less than the requirements that I’m used to from these gamers.”
Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo was understandably delighted with the end result, particularly because the membership had taken simply 5 factors from their earlier 25 visits to Anfield.
“A lot of our followers right now within the stadium weren’t even born (the final time they gained) so that claims how onerous it’s,” he mentioned.
“I’m very pleased and pleased with the work of the gamers, they labored very onerous.
“General, we knew how onerous the sport was going to be. It’s all about taking your possibilities.”
Liverpool 0-1 Forest
