Slaughter: 0-1 was the watershed, we didn’t create any decent chances after that

Hupu News November 23 In the Premier League, Liverpool 0-3 Nottingham Forest. Liverpool coach Arne Slott was interviewed after the game.

Reporter: How serious is this defeat? What do you think is the problem today?

Slaughter: It’s hard to quantify how serious it is, but it’s really bad. Of course, losing 0-3 at home is undoubtedly an extremely, extremely bad result no matter which team you face. Considering the performance in the first 30 minutes of the game, this result is indeed unexpected.

In my opinion, we started well - there may not have been any game this season where we created so many chances in the first 30 minutes - I'm not sure because I can't remember the details of every game, but our offense was really threatening during that period.

However, they scored the first time they entered our penalty area. It's really hard to accept when you're constantly missing chances and your opponent is scoring on almost every shot.

Reporter: In the final stage of the game, you sent two midfielders as guest defenders. It feels like you had to make a lot of adjustments in order to add offensive players while maintaining the formation, resulting in the players not being in familiar positions.

Sloat: Yes. Because both of our full-backs were injured, we had to play a midfielder at right-back for this game - Joe Gomez can also play in this position, but he has not participated in training all week and I don't think he is fully ready to start.

And when we are 0-2 behind, I don't think it is necessary to send a defender on. Normally - at least that's what I've always done - I prefer to bring in players who can score goals. So when I brought on Ibrahimovic (Ibrahima Konate), I did put two midfielders at the back.

But we needed goals too much at that time, which is why I replaced Ibrahimovic with Hugo Ekitic - just to add a player with finishing ability. Before the opponent scored the third goal, I also adjusted the formation to 3-3-4, but after the first substitution, I felt that the team did not create many opportunities.

I have been coaching here for a year and a half, and you may know better than me that as long as one goal is scored at Anfield, the situation may completely change. So we need a goal, we need some turnaround.

But after replacing Hugo, the team still failed to create an effective threat, so I felt that when we were trailing 0-2, we might as well take another risk - but the result was terrible, we fell behind 0-3 two seconds later.

Reporter: The opponent's first goal was obviously controversial. Ndoye was in an offside position. The Premier League official said that he did not interfere with Alisson. What do you think of this goal?

Sloter: Someone told me during the game that the ball was a valid goal (not offside), so I didn't care at all at the time. Someone told me after the game that he might have been offside - is this 100% certain? Or has it been confirmed by Premier League officials or the referee team? Is Ndoye in the goalkeeper's sights? This is the key.

I had to go back and watch the video, because the statement I immediately heard was "no offside" and I didn't pay attention to the problem of line of sight interference. We have conceded two goals this season against Atletico Madrid and one against Eintracht Frankfurt, and the goalkeeper was more obscured in those goals than we did at Manchester City.

But it’s useless to say this now. No one wants to hear me complain about the referee’s penalty. After losing 0-3 at home to Forest, I should first reflect on myself and the team instead of making other excuses.

But this also shows that a set piece or a goal can change the momentum of the game - before falling behind by 1 goal, I always felt that we would score at any time, but after that we almost never created any decent opportunities.

Reporter: The problems in recent weeks have been very similar: points lost from set pieces and opportunities missed. Although the specific responsibility falls on the players,...

Sloter: No, no, no. Win or lose, the responsibility is mine.

But I also saw that the team and the fans persisted until the end - the fans supported the whole process and the players kept working hard. And apart from the first half against Manchester City - where we were not the only team to struggle - we dominated and created chances in every other game.

Like I said recently, we are almost always in a cycle of "missed opportunities" and "killed by opponents", but this cannot be the case throughout the entire season.

What we need is a goal that can ignite morale - if the team performs well and takes the lead, the opponent will feel that "it is 0-1 behind after half an hour and has barely touched the ball", and their mentality will change. But this time it was the opposite and they got a huge morale boost with a 1-0 goal.

I think many times, under normal circumstances we should be able to get better results, but now we are in trouble, which requires more effort than in good times to turn the situation around.

Reporter: You said you should reflect on yourself first. Are you worried that you won't be able to lead the team out of its current record slump?

You ask me if I doubt myself now? Last season's results and my coaching career gave me the confidence to find a way out, especially now that we have so many quality players. I think whether you win or lose, when you look back at your lineups and substitutions, you always think, "Where can I do better? Where can I adjust?" But that's different from doubting yourself.

I would like to emphasize once again that the responsibility for the current failure lies with me. Winning or losing does not affect the consistency of your responsibility. Although you asked relevant questions, I don't want to talk about refereeing decisions or make other excuses - no amount of excuses can justify our current record. This result is far from good enough, and the responsibility lies with me.

Reporter: You mentioned that the team has created enough opportunities. But it's been a long time since Liverpool went two games in a row without scoring. Are you worried that the players are getting too nervous because of the pressure to score? Will this become a vicious cycle?

Sloat: I don’t think so yet. It's hard for me to fully relate to the players' feelings, but in the way they handled their chances, I didn't see a lack of confidence or hesitation on the part of anyone. For example, Alexis McAllister's shot was very good, but the opponent's defense was also very good.

So I think this is not a problem, but after all, I am not on the court, so it is difficult to make an absolutely accurate judgment. I only saw that we could indeed create opportunities and the quality of our shots was in line with expectations, but the opponents' blocking and saves were also excellent.

Reporter: You mentioned that you tried to adjust the formation to 3-3-4. Can you explain the thinking behind it? Sometimes it looks like all hands are on the ball, but the team struggles to advance the ball upfield and the players seem to struggle to get the ball.

Slaughter: I don’t think we had a problem with the ball advancing - Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah got a lot of the ball on the wings, but it was difficult to create effective opportunities because the opponent deployed a lot of defensive players in and around the penalty area.

We have tried the formation of "4 defenders + 3 midfielders + 3 forwards" for 75 minutes - although the defenders are actually midfielders, which was caused by injuries, so the idea at the time was to make an offensive substitution - I also did this last season: in the away game against Forest, I replaced Ibrahimovic and replaced him with Diogo Jota, and the score was equalized 1-1 after one minute.

That substitution was truly "brave", but this time it may have seemed "stupid" - of course, all the responsibility for this lies with me.