Liverpool head coach Arne Slot admits his first defeat – a shock 1-0 dwelling loss to Nottingham Forest – is “a giant setback.”
After three victories with out conceding his facet 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. For those who lose a house recreation that’s all the time a setback,” Slot mentioned.
“Usually this group isn’t ending up in high 10, so if you happen to lose a recreation in opposition to them that’s a giant 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 loads of lengthy balls, so if you happen to then take the ball again you want to go previous 11 gamers.
“We had loads of ball possession however solely managed to create three or 4 fairly good probabilities. That’s by far not sufficient.
“When you have a lot possession and play a lot of their half we have to be a lot better, we misplaced the ball so many instances in easy conditions.
“That’s the principle story from the sport – ball possession was not ok.”
This was Slot’s first match after a world break and it appeared to point out 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.
Nevertheless, 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 suppose it had something to do with it,” he added.
“Gamers got here again robust and I noticed right now a group that wished to combat till the top. That wasn’t to do with vitality.
“For those who have a look at the targets we scored till now, we scored fairly just a few from transition moments from successful the ball again, however the different group (Forest) performed over our press quite a bit with loads of lengthy balls.
“It wasn’t ok right now as a result of too many particular person performances in ball possession had been lower than the requirements that I’m used to from these gamers.”
Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo was understandably delighted with the outcome, 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 received) so that claims how exhausting it’s,” he mentioned.
“I’m very pleased and happy with the work of the gamers, they labored very exhausting.
“Total, we knew how exhausting the sport was going to be. It’s all about taking your probabilities.”