Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 0-1 Nottingham Forest

No amount of sugar in all of the world could coat that.

After three impressive wins Liverpool follow it up with a lifeless and insipid display that gets exactly what it deserves. Nothing.

Something I said about Arne Slot’s system is that it doesn’t require all eleven players playing well to win a game, and can probably function with only six or seven having good games.

But today you’d struggle to name three Liverpool players who’ve had afternoons that even touch good.

Another thing I’ve been interested in is that Liverpool, until this point, had had three games that had largely gone their own way and ended up all being relatively comfortable.

I was fascinated to see how Slot’s pragmatic and business-like team responded to adversity and to going a goal down.

We get to see that for the first time today and it’s not pretty. Jurgen Klopp’s teams always offered some response to being behind and became masters of the comebacks. 

We’re not asking for that - because it’s not healthy to be facing so much adversity - but the lack of any real reaction to Forest’s goal today is alarming.

As is the entirety of the second half.

The first half isn’t awful, but it’s pretty pedestrian and fails to see the Reds convert the chances that they should - Diogo Jota shoots straight at Matz Sels with a great opportunity and Luis Diaz hits the post when a cut-back is the better option.

It’s a first half performance that looks leggy and weary. It reminded me a lot of the Crystal Palace defeat at Anfield in April when Liverpool just looked absolutely exhausted and broken down by the trials and tribulations of the season to date.

The difference here is that it’s not April, it’s September, and we’ve only played three games. Three games in which we’ve enjoyed dominance and control for the main and haven’t been hugely tested. 

The early-season international break arguably didn’t come at a great time for Liverpool and they’d have loved to have a chance to continue the momentum that had been built up from those three wins, particularly the last one at Old Trafford.

However, this is the first time I’m finding myself feeling some criticism towards the manager. For the third game running, he picks an unchanged team. 

None of them deserved to be dropped, but equally, seven of them played 180 minutes during the international break and so asking them to go again in what looked on paper the least difficult game of the week ahead, is a strange one.

Rotation was a must today: Luis Diaz only arrived back in England on Thursday morning, surely starting Cody Gakpo or Federico Chiesa was the right decision today. 

Diogo Jota and Alexis Mac Allister look shattered throughout and yet we had Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones who stayed in Liverpool during the break. 

Now, it’s worth saying that all of Gakpo, Nunez and Jones were terrible when they eventually do get on the pitch, but might not have been if they’d started.

The clunkiness and lack of connectivity - particularly in the forward areas today - is a sign of a team that lacked freshness and energy today. Jota could hardly get himself involved and was finding himself wider and wider as it went on.

I really think the manager makes a mistake today by not making any changes to the team. Big weeks like this are defined by team selections and you should always pick the hardest game and work backwards in terms of your selection thoughts.

Not having Chiesa on the bench today ages very badly. Slot insinuates on Friday that he’s not fully fit yet but very few of Liverpool’s players today actually do look that. He’s had four training sessions this week but Diaz has only had one - one of them starts and one of them doesn’t make the squad.

Admittedly though, this is not all on the manager. Other than Alisson Becker, Ibrahima Konate, Virgil Van Dijk and Ryan Gravenberch, Liverpool’s starters today all range somewhere between below-par and downright atrocious.

Today is an exhibition of why Mohamed Salah’s contract situation may be more complex than people think. He’s been sensational in the first three games but today looks exactly like the player we saw between February and May last season that no-one would’ve given an extension to.

His decision-making is all wrong today and at 0-1, goes into solo superhero mode which I can confidently say never works for him. 

Alex Moreno does a stellar job of locking Salah down and it’s one of his worst ever performances at Anfield.

Andrew Robertson, Diaz and Dominik Szoboszlai have similarly horrific days. Szoboszlai can’t find a pass for love nor money, Diaz is easily controlled and looked after by Ola Aina, Robertson looks goosed from ten minutes in and will be annoyed with his personal performances.

Trent Alexander-Arnold starts at right-back and ends in midfield but is ineffectual in both roles, and the final roll of the dice to go to a back three is desperate at best.

The goal is a great one from Forest, a fabulous pass from Anthony Elanga to Callum Hudson-Odoi, a good shift of the feet and a delightful finish. But. It is so, so avoidable from Liverpool.

Losing the ball when on the attack, again. 

Gakpo should be so much brighter against Elanga - if the player is faster than you and they’re heading for a three-on-one, you’ve got to pull him down and take the yellow card. 

Conor Bradley buys every dummy that Hudson-Odoi is selling and Konate needs to be way more front-footed.

It’s possible that Alisson could react a little quicker but it’s an excellent shot and various players could and should have stopped the move at several points beforehand.

Where is the physicality? We lose out all day long in the physical duels and whilst Slot is trying to build a technically exceptional team, he shouldn’t underestimate the necessity of being physical.

I think it’s worth saying that the opposition today are excellent and thoroughly deserving of a famous win. When the teamsheets drop, I’m surprised at two things: no changes from Slot, and Nuno benching Elanga and Hudson-Odoi, who we all know are Forest’s two biggest threats.

What Nuno does really well is turn a 90-minute game into a 30-minute one. He knows Forest can’t live with Liverpool for 90 minutes, so keeps it tight and ultra defensive for the first 60, hopes they can get to the hour mark at 0-0 or even 1-0 down, and then unleashes his two weapons and turns a 90-minute game into a half-hour duel.

For Forest, they approach the game in three half-hour acts and hope that they can survive acts one and two, and punish Liverpool in the final act. It works perfectly. 

It has to be said, that while Forest beat Liverpool, Liverpool also beat themselves. By 30, we are average. By 60, we are poor. By 90, we are appalling.

All of our best chances come in that first half an hour. 

From 30-90, our best chance is worth just 0.06xG.

The goal comes from their two wingers combining as they catch a tired and frustrated Liverpool on the counter.

The game plays out exactly as Nuno would’ve planned and hoped for.

I talked a lot a few weeks ago about how Liverpool outclassed a United team that lacked any identity. Today, we come up against an organised outfit that is sure of itself.

This Forest team is very much built in the image of Nuno’s Wolves teams. James Ward-Prowse is the Ruben Neves, the dictating playmaker with a set-piece ability. Chris Wood is the Raul Jimenez, the hard-working, uber-physical striker. Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo are the Conor Coady and the Willy Boly - no-nonsense defenders who lead their team and go about their business efficiently. And the final pieces in the jigsaw are Elanga and Hudson-Odoi; the Adama Traore and Diogo Jota, the lethal attacking weapons.

The unchanged team and the clearly pre-programmed subs of Nunez, Gakpo and Bradley suggests that Slot considered Tuesday in Milan as the more important, or more difficult game.

But, and this is something I said he would have to learn when he got the job, there are no easy games in this league.

I don’t want to sound xenophobic or egregiously up our own backsides here, but this league is so different to any other in Europe. 

Forest may finish 15th this season in the Premier League but they would finish top five in the Netherlands and Slot needs to be acutely aware that playing 15th in England is not the same as playing 15th in Netherlands.

Every team in this league has Champions League standard players. Hudson-Odoi and Elanga could still easily get in their former Chelsea and Man United teams.

Milenkovic, Moreno and Murillo are good enough to start for 60% of Champions League teams. 

Morgan Gibbs-White was in a four-man attack with Bukayo Saka, Anthony Gordon and Harry Kane this time last week.

We’ll be playing Bournemouth next weekend, a team who will finish no higher than 9th this season, but they too have players in Iliya Zabarnyi, Marcos Senesi, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Milos Kerkez, Philip Billing, Alex Scott, Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson who could make an impact in most Champions League squads.

Forest may end up being a bottom-half team but it’s these fixtures where the league is won - Man City took 60/60 points against the bottom half last season.

Old Trafford and the San Siro are all well and good, but it’s the Forests at home that tell you more about a team’s credentials.

Most of the bottom half will come to Anfield with a back three and attempt to form a solid base.

Liverpool are rank today. They are abysmal and they are far too quickly out of ideas of how to break down an organised defensive structure.

They simply cannot be this clueless the next time they face one in seven days.

Daniel