It was a rather dull and lacklustre performance from the Reds on Saturday as the unbeaten start to the season was put to an end. It was the same starting XI to the previous two games but with varied results all across the pitch.
Lack of threat up-front
Diogo Jota has had a relatively good start to the season with a goal and an assist to his name. However, in the past two games he has been hauled off the pitch without making much of an impact.
Against both Man United and Forest, Diogo has had to deal with 4 very physical and rough defenders, coming up against De Ligt and Martinez in Manchester, then on Saturday matching up with Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic.
All 4 of these central defenders have a mean streak in them and may be something that Jota may not be able to handle.
His lack of explosive pace and physicality can hamper him in certain matchups and these two games have really felt like games were someone else maybe should have been tried.
But even with the challenges he faced, Diogo did have a chance to give Liverpool the lead against Forest as a fantastic cross from Alexis Mac Allister gave Jota the chance, but a mix of good defending and no fight from Jota led to a shot that was directly to the Nottingham keeper, Matz Sels.
Darwin Nuñez has both the attributes that Jota seems to lack. Arne Slot has used Nuñez in both of these games, and both times coming on to replace Jota.
His impact hasn’t been huge when introduced but you can tell the defenders are more aware of Nuñez and his attributes. His relentless nature to hassle and work for the team massively helps and can make him a huge game changer.
LFC can create chances against the low block
Over the course of the Jurgen Klopp tenure a common theme of his team was the problems they faced against teams who sit back and invite the pressure.
This doesn’t seem to be a continuous problem for Slot. With an xG of 0.94, much higher than Forest’s, and many more shots within the box, LFC were creating the chances to score. On the day they just didn’t land in the back of the net for the reds.
As mentioned previously Jota had a chance to score for LFC. Multiple other chances within the box as well, Luis Diaz hit the post in the first 15 minutes and a Mac Allister header straight at Sels.
None of the front three seemed to get into their higher gears and cause many problems but with the quality of the three players much more should have been made of the chances they had.
Defensively, still very good
A fantastically executed counter-attack from Forest doesn’t take away from a solid defensive performance.
The pass from Elanga, an assist any attacker would be proud of, and the cut inside and shot from Hudson-Odoi a finish, the best in the world would love to produce, it was all perfect.
Looking at the LFC defensive performance as a whole though, Arne Slot cannot be to upset with his team.
Forest were never going to come out firing against this the back four, but all four of them played well and dealt with the few problems Forest’s attackers gave them.
Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate are two of the best defenders in the world and it shows when they play together. In the first half Forest didn’t register a single shot, and only grew in confidence in their game plan after the half time break, a great game plan from Nuno Espirito Santo.
When looking back at the performance as a whole there wont be many negatives, just that the team has to be more clinical, this is the Premier League no matter the opposition they can punish you.