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Arne Slot declared he had to “examine my own performance” after the Reds suffered a sixth defeat in 7 Premier League games at home against Forest and insisted he would find a way from the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone prior to the match, produced the biggest win at Anfield in their club records as Liverpool slipped to an 8th loss in 11 matches in every tournament. The British record signing, Alexander Isak, was once more unnoticeable and the home side contended the defender's opener should have been disallowed for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal versus City prior to the international break. But Slot conceded the buck stopped with him and offered no alibis.

“Nobody wants to hear me now talking about officiating calls if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I ought to look at my own role initially and my squad, but it does show you how a score can change the momentum of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to net a strike. Afterwards we hardly created anything.

“Naturally there is a way out, particularly with the quality players we have. No matter if you win or lose when you look back you are always thinking: ‘In which areas can we improve, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning your abilities.

“I want to stress I am accountable for the current losses. You are answerable when you are winning but also liable when you are losing. I can never provide enough excuses for us to have the outcomes we have. That is not good enough and I am to blame for that.”

Liverpool’s performance fell apart as Slot made several offensive changes when pursuing the game. “It was the identical on the road at Nottingham Forest last season,” he said. “I substituted the French defender out and put on [Diogo] Jota and he scored straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, now it’s likely stupid.”

Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive at Anfield Premier League fixtures by Nottingham Forest in the sixties. The last time they suffered back-to-back league matches by a three-goal margin was in 1965.

Slot commented: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, conceding 3-0 no matter which opponent you encounter is a terrible result. Surprising if you consider the first half-hour of the game. I did not witness us creating so much in the opening half-hour maybe the entire season, and the initial occasion they arrived in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t against Manchester City, but in all other fixture we have been the dominant side and were able to generate chances. Recently it is nearly consistently that we fail to convert our opportunities and the attempts we allow go in.”