Arne Slot has called Saturday's shock 1-0 loss at home to Nottingham Forest a "big setback" for his Liverpool team.
Slot was looking to become the first manager in Premier League history to win and keep a clean sheet in his first four matches, but instead Liverpool were beaten by Callum Hudson-Odoi's second-half goal, giving Forest a first league win at Anfield for 55 years.
Slot says it's a "big disappointment" to lose to a team who aren't usually a top-half Premier League finisher.
"Not to the process, but it is a big setback," Slot said.
"If you lose a home game it’s always a setback, especially if you face a team - we never know, maybe they will go all the way to fight for Champions League tickets - but normally this team is not ending up in the top 10, so if you lose a game against them that’s a big disappointment. Although, they were organised and structured really well today.
"The only thing we had influence on was ball possession because they played a lot of long balls, so if you then take the ball back you need to go past 11 players. We had a lot of ball possession but only managed to create three or four quite good chances, so that is by far not enough if you have so much ball possession. If you play so much in their half, we need to do much better. We lost the ball so many times in simple situations. That is, I think, the main story from the game: ball possession not good enough."
'International break not to blame'
Liverpool looked a different team to the one who beat Ipswich Town, Brentford and Manchester United in the first three Matchweeks before the international break. But Slot insists the break had nothing to do with his side's poor performance.
"I don’t think it had anything to do with it. Players came back strong and I saw today also a team that wanted to fight until the end. So it had nothing to do with energy," added Slot.
Liverpool are now three points behind early Premier League leaders Manchester City, who came from behind to extend their winning start to the season with a 2-1 victory over Brentford.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Liverpool
LIV
|
16 | +21 | 39 |
| 2 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
17 | +18 | 35 |
| 3 |
Arsenal
ARS
|
17 | +18 | 33 |
| 4 |
Nott'm Forest
NFO
|
17 | +4 | 31 |
But before their next Premier League match, at home to AFC Bournemouth next Saturday, Liverpool travel to Italy to start their UEFA Champions League campaign at AC Milan on Tuesday. Slot says the defeat to Forest will not change his preparations.
"I want to see the same attitude every single day: after a big win, after a small win, after a draw, after a loss," he said. "It is just to go out to work again tomorrow, analyse what we did well and what we didn’t do well.
"There were enough things we could improve from the Man Utd game, that’s also what we showed them [the players]. We showed them also a few good things, and that’s going to be the same tomorrow and the day after.
"Like we prepare [for] all the other ones. It wouldn’t be good [if this defeat was an influence]. If I would change my way of preparation after a loss, that means I only do the best work I can after we lose. So, I always try to do the same, just the same as I expect from the players. They have to recover in the best possible way after a win and after a loss or a draw. And we will try to in the best possible way be prepared for Tuesday, which is going to be a completely different game but also a game where we will face a lot of quality."
