Liverpool ‘not up to standard’ Slot says after shock defeat to Nottingham Forest

LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — All good things come to an end. Few expected Liverpool’s good thing to end on Saturday.

An uncommon perfect run of three wins to start the English Premier League without conceding a goal came to a stunning end at Anfield where Nottingham Forest won for the first time since 1969.

Forest had 30% possession, three shots on target — all after halftime — and only two corners but Callum Hudson-Odoi curled a shot beyond the reach of Alisson in the 72nd minute and it held up in a 1-0 win.

Liverpool’s effort was scrappy as passes went astray and touches were often missed. The players looked like they hadn’t seen each other for two weeks.

The international break took away 10 players but manager Arne Slot said that was no excuse.

“It’s always difficult, but I don’t think it had anything to do with it,” Slot said.

“Players came back strong and I saw today a team that wanted to fight until the end. That wasn’t to do with energy.

“If you look at the goals we scored until now, we scored quite a few from transition moments from winning the ball back, but the other team (Forest) played over our press a lot with a lot of long balls.

“Too many individual performances in ball possession were not up to the standards that I’m used to from these players.”

Liverpool’s best chance was its first when Luis Diaz shot against the near post and the ball ricocheted across the face of the goal.

The amount of possession Liverpool had made the result that much more pitiful for Slot.

“We had a lot of ball possession but only managed to create three or four quite good chances. That’s by far not enough.

“If you have so much possession and play so much in their half we need to be much better. We lost the ball so many times in simple situations.

“It is a big setback. If you lose a home game that’s always a setback.”