Arne Slot suffered his first defeat as Liverpool manager today, losing 1-0 at home to Nottingham Forest, just the visitors’ second win of the season.
Speaking at full time, Slot made no attempt to mask his emotion, the usually reserved coach bluntly identifying unforced errors in possession as Liverpool’s undoing.
He also rued a lack of creativity. Liverpool failed to score from 14 shots and failed to capitalise on seven corners. The generally reliable pairing of Mohammed Salah and Luis Diaz both failed to impress, too.
Slot said: “The result frustrates the most and we cannot be happy about how the game went. It was a stop-start game and we hardly created any chances.
“We only have to look at ourselves, we have to be better. Far too many times we lost the ball around the area, it was not good enough.
“We have to be better with the ball. Our decisions and execution wasn’t good enough.”
He pointed to Callum Hudson-Odoi’s introduction as a turning point in the match. The winger was introduced in the 54th minute and scored the winner on the break twenty minutes later, smartly curling his finish beyond Allison.
Slot believes it was more a question of Hudson-Odoi’s quality than defensive shortcomings.
“In general we defended quite well but the two fast players came on and made it difficult. We took a lot of risk and in the end it was a very good goal.”
Liverpool will have the opportunity to return to form on Tuesday as they visit AC Milan for their Champions League season opener.
