Liverpool suffered their first Premier League defeat under manager Arne Slot against Nottingham Forest yesterday.
The Merseyside heavyweights started the campaign in sensational fashion with three league wins on the bounce. They delivered an outstanding performance to beat Manchester United (3-0) before the international break.
It was anticipated that they would secure another routine win over Forest on Saturday, but the players failed to find the cutting edge in the final 3rd, suffering a shock 1-0 defeat at Anfield which no one expected.
There were more negatives than positives from the dreadful loss and midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai had a forgettable outing as he was guilty of losing possession on a staggering 18 occasions over the course of the game.
The Hungarian star also committed 3 fouls with a pass success rate of only 78%. Aside from 1 blocked shot, he was barely a threat on goal. The 23-year-old won just 50% of his ground duels from the attacking midfield role.
Szoboszlai was also fortunate to escape a red card in stoppage time. He kicked the ball away in frustration after committing a foul. He could have easily received his marching orders, having already been on a yellow card.
Liverpool will travel to Milan for Tuesday’s Champions League game versus AC Milan. Slot is bound to make some changes to the starting XI in reaction to the Forest loss. Szoboszlai could be one of those benched.
Slot has already shown that he won’t entertain any underperformers in his playing line-up and the Dutchman has been pro-active in the first few weeks with some early and unexpected substitutions in games.
The new Champions League format starts with a 36-team league phase with each team playing 8 games, 4 at home and 4 on the road. Every one of those fixtures will be crucial as the top 8 directly make the round of 16.
The teams from 9th to 24th in the table will be involved in a knockout play-off. Liverpool need to start off brightly with a victory over the Rossoneri at San Siro in midweek.
