My View From Anfield, as Liverpool Struggle In Slot's First Defeat

Blame me!

It was so long ago that I can’t even remember the previous home defeat I attended. I make it to only a few games a season these days (and rarely the glamorous/more testing fixtures), but saw more than my fair share of Anfield defeats in the 1990s and into the 2000s in my season ticket days. (A memorable defeat I saw was to Rafa Benítez’s Valencia in 2001/02, as they were so good, as were the Barcelona team around that time.)

Yet I’d managed to avoid attending an Anfield defeat for maybe 20 years, until now. (The last defeat of any kind I can remember attending is Athens, 2007, as I think that was my last non-Anfield game, bar a domestic cup final.)

Of course, Liverpool started losing home games at the end of last season (two in a few days), and maybe some anxiety has set in.

It’s not Fortress Anfield, for certain, and this game raised a lot of questions that may or may not be relevant, about issues that may or may not be transient.

I’ve not read anything about the game yet (including this site’s own post-match review), apart from Arne Slot’s post-match comments, as I wanted to give my full unvarnished take, which may be full of the flaws of a single viewing of a game from a single angle, just as the Reds’ game, on this occasion, seemed full of flaws after an exciting start to the season.

To me, from a seat just below the scoreboard, every fault of this Liverpool team and almost every fault of every player seemed exposed, with almost none of the positive aspects.

The players seemed edgy, misplacing so many passes in good areas, and no one seemed to know if they should shoot or make that extra pass.

‘Should I shoot?’ ... and then the situation has changed anyway. It’s not second nature, instinctive, right now.

While this confusion will surely fade (and it will take time to assess, mould, improve and maybe discard players), the following struck me:

It seemed like a team that didn’t know whether to play the old style, the new style, or their international style, with every single starter and some key subs off on duty for the fortnight, perhaps doing different roles in different teams on different continents (in a very different style and pace of football) that varied greatly in terms of what they could do and what the opposition could do in reply.

• Games after international breaks

• Games before big Champions League games

These are the points where the teams in contention often lose something, whether consciously or subconsciously holding back 20%. Aston Villa clearly held back as much as 90% against Everton.

But ... it was Everton.

(It must be 20 years since some Everton fans drove past and threw their sandwiches at us from their car, but this time as we walked to Anfield we just got a tribal “Ev-eeer-ton” out the window. We all felt truly humbled by this undeniable truth. With Bramley Dock down low on the horizon behind us, maybe the question was “who will have the best stadium in the 2nd tier?”, or “who should focus on their own problems?”)

And Forest have a lot of qualities and an approach that a lot of ‘difficult’ Premier League sides now have, almost as a check-list, in increasing numbers:

• Low-block, super-fast wingers.

• Low-block, big-lump striker, super-fast wingers.

• Low-block, big-lump striker, super-fast wingers. Fast full-backs.

• Low-block, big-lump striker, big-lump centre-back, super-fast wingers. Fast full-backs.

• Low-block, big-lump striker, big-lump centre-back, midfield monster, super-fast wingers. Fast full-backs.

(And a club like Forest can buy a 6’5” centre-back with 58 international caps, still only in his mid-20s and with 200+ Serie A games for a club like Fiorentina, and who seems perfect for deep defending.)

I was looking at the game and wondering where the space was. There didn’t seem to be a lot. Forest seemed to have more energy, to close things down quickly.

While Arne Slot refused to blame the international break (sometimes managers have to speak the opposite of the truth), it can’t help; especially for the South Americans, with Alexis Mac Allister struggling noticeably after international breaks last season.

It’s a lot to ask, in the slog of the English season, where players know they cannot do everything, on top of internationals.

It would have been risky to rotate after three wins with more-or-less the same side, but keeping the same XI who’d all been away in between perhaps proved costly. Hindsight is great in these situations.

Had Slot blamed the international break, it would look like he was making excuses (and managers honestly pointing out genuine extenuating circumstances get labeled as cry-babies), and maybe given the players an ‘out’ for next time.

Liverpool playing all those games at 12:30 never helped Jürgen Klopp, but he pointed it out, whilst obviously never saying it’s the reason why the team lost. But it is a factor, just as this was.

Imagine, say, a World Cup final or Champions League final where virtually all the players (bar four) in a 20+ squad only turn up a day or two beforehand, having been on various continents playing two games that week for various teams. And then say that the manager is only in his fourth game at that club.

To have no team training until Thursday, and probably then not have some of the internationals fully involved even then, means almost zero preparation time, in addition to jet-lag and post-match heaviness in the legs.

All the continuity built up over weeks, since July, was lost, and as almost no player bar the increasingly impressive Ryan Gravenberch had a good game, no one could help others have a good game, or obscure others having a bad game. Everyone’s bad passing showed up everyone else. No one read what anyone else was about to do.

Slot said at Ipswich that he wants the team to win more duels, but we’ve also watched years of an insane differential in fouls going against Liverpool, even when the less-aggressive side, and having two-thirds of possession. By half-time it was nine fouls by Liverpool to just three by Forest (the usual, baffling pattern), and Michael Oliver was missing so much he may as well not have been there.

There were also groans from the crowd at backwards passes, which I fully understand, but which isn’t helpful.

The old way left big holes but was mostly big fun. This was actually dull, lacking tempo and precision, and also concerted pressure. There was no wave pushing Forest back, just them staying back in numbers and hitting on the break, and breaking up the game.

There will always be teams that negate your style and those whom you can exploit, like playing rock/paper/scissors. This felt like Forest were fresher and faster and stronger, and that worked on the day, while Liverpool’s poor execution of key passes meant that they played into the away team’s hands. Had those passes been of the usual standard, it could have been 1-0 Liverpool, 2-0 Liverpool and then cruise mode.

But as good as the XI and squad is, Liverpool have no express pace in either full-back or winger, left or right, in the XI and in most cases, on the bench too.

Forest’s wingers seemed faster than Liverpool’s full-backs, and their full-backs seemed faster than the Reds’ wingers.

The timing of the runs and the key passes that get Mo Salah away seemed lacking, while Luis Díaz had someone else’s boots on. Salah himself played about half a dozen passes to Forest when a good pass would have led to a shot.

And as Liverpool pushed on, Forest played behind the full-backs on the break.

When you lack pace you have to be quick and extra accurate in your passing.

Federico Chiesa is genuinely fast and two-footed. So he at least theoretically addresses an issue that I felt existed last season, but will he displace Salah, whose age-related shortcomings were not so exposed in previous games, where he excelled?

Darwin Núñez as, hitherto, the only super-fast attacking option is a problem, as is the player himself (i.e. his very existence) if not selected when one of only four fresh players. Chiesa will need time to get up to speed, pun half-intended.

This was a day when Liverpool’s lack of pace, including a leggy Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo as a sub who never looked to beat his man, looked telling, but it hasn’t looked as much of an issue in the three previous games.

With the issues that arose against Forest, some will be ephemeral, and some more in need of tweaking and fixing. There is always a balance to strike in football; a constant shifting of emphasis between risk and reward, safety and self-harm.

The concerns are worth voicing, even if it’s unfair to expect solutions and a fully fashioned prototype after just four games.

**The second half of this article is for paying TTT Main Hub subscribers only.**