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Arne Slot declared he needed to “examine my own performance” after the Reds suffered a sixth defeat in 7 English top-flight matches at home to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a solution from the title holders' poor run.

Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone before kick off, delivered the biggest victory at Anfield in their club records as the Merseyside club slipped to an 8th loss in 11 fixtures in all competitions. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and the home side argued the defender's opener ought to have been disallowed for similar reasons to the captain's chalked-off goal versus City prior to the national team pause. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.

“Nobody wants to listen to me now talking about officiating calls if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I should examine myself first and my team, but it demonstrates you how a goal can alter the momentum of a match. Earlier I was just hoping for us to score a goal. Afterwards we hardly created anything.

“Naturally there is a way out, especially with the quality footballers we have. No matter if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always thinking: ‘Where can we do better, where can we adjust?’ but that is something else from questioning yourself.

“I wish to emphasise I am responsible for the current defeats. You are responsible when you are victorious but also liable when you are losing. I can not come up with sufficient reasons for us to have the results we have. That is not acceptable and I am to blame for that.”

The team's performance fell apart as the coach introduced multiple attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the same away at Nottingham Forest last season,” he remarked. “I took the French defender out and put on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. Then it was courageous, currently it’s probably stupid.”

Liverpool last lost back-to-back home league fixtures by Forest in the sixties. The last time they suffered back-to-back league games by a 3-0 margin was in the mid-60s.

The manager commented: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you encounter is a very, very bad outcome. Unexpected if you look at the opening 30 minutes of the game. I haven’t seen us producing so many chances in the initial half-hour maybe the whole season, and the first time they arrived in our box they scored.

“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in all other fixture we have been the controlling side and were able to generate opportunities. Lately it is almost consistently that we fail to convert our opportunities and the attempts we concede go in.”