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Arne Slot declared he needed to “examine my own performance” following the Reds endured a 6th loss in 7 English top-flight matches on their own turf to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a way from the champions’ poor run.

Nottingham Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, delivered the biggest victory at Anfield in their history as the Merseyside club fell to an eighth defeat in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was once more anonymous and the home side argued Murillo’s opener should have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against City before the international break. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.

“Nobody wants to hear me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” stated the Reds' boss. “I should look at my own role initially and my squad, but it demonstrates you how a score can alter the flow of a game. Earlier I was just hoping for us to score a goal. Afterwards we barely generated anything.

“Naturally there is a path forward, particularly with the talented footballers we have. No matter if you win or lose when you look back you are always considering: ‘In which areas can we improve, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning yourself.

“I want to emphasise I am accountable for the present losses. You are responsible when you are victorious but also responsible when you are defeated. I can never come up with enough reasons for us to have the results we have. That is not acceptable and I am to blame for that.”

The team's display fell apart as the coach made several offensive changes when chasing the game. “It was the identical away at Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I substituted the French defender off and put on the Portuguese forward and he scored immediately to equalize at 1-1. Then it was courageous, now it’s probably unwise.”

Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive at Anfield league games by Forest in 1963. The last time they lost consecutive top-flight matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.

The manager commented: “It was extremely poor. Playing on home soil, conceding 3-0 regardless of which opponent you encounter is a very, very bad result. Unexpected if you look at the first half-hour of the game. I did not witness us creating so many chances in the opening half-hour maybe the entire season, and the initial occasion they entered in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It wasn’t at City, but in every other game we have been the controlling side and were able to create chances. Lately it is almost consistently that we miss our chances and the ones we allow go in.”