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Liverpool's head coach declared he needed to “examine my own performance” after the Reds endured a sixth defeat in 7 English top-flight games on their own turf against Forest and insisted he would discover a solution from the title holders' slump.

Nottingham Forest, in the relegation zone prior to the match, produced the largest victory at Anfield in their history as the Merseyside club fell to an eighth loss in 11 matches in every tournament. The most expensive domestic acquisition, Alexander Isak, was again unnoticeable and Liverpool contended Murillo’s first goal should have been disallowed for comparable grounds to Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed effort against City prior to the international break. But the manager admitted the buck rested with him and offered no alibis.

“Nobody wants to hear me now talking about refereeing decisions if you lose 3-0 in your own stadium to Forest,” said the Reds' boss. “I ought to examine myself initially and my squad, but it does show you how a score can alter the flow of a game. Before I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Afterwards we hardly created any chances.

“Of course there is a way out, particularly with the talented players we have. Regardless if you win or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we improve, in what aspects can we make changes?’ but that is something else from questioning your abilities.

“I want to emphasise I am accountable for the current defeats. You are answerable when you are victorious but also liable when you are defeated. I can never come up with sufficient reasons for us to have the outcomes we have. That is far from acceptable and I am responsible for that.”

Liverpool’s performance fell apart as Slot made multiple offensive changes when pursuing the match. “It was the identical away at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he remarked. “I substituted Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] out and put on the Portuguese forward and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was brave, now it’s likely stupid.”

The Anfield side previously were defeated in back-to-back home league fixtures against Forest in 1963. The last time they suffered consecutive league matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.

The manager said: “It was very bad. Playing on home soil, conceding 3-0 regardless of which opponent you encounter is a very, very bad outcome. Surprising if you consider the first half-hour of the match. I haven’t seen us creating so many chances in the opening 30 minutes maybe the whole season, and the first time they entered in our penalty area they scored.

“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in every other game we have been the dominant team and were able to create opportunities. Lately it is almost consistently that we miss our chances and the attempts we concede find the net.”