Abject Liverpool put Arne Slot in very real firing line after Forest thrashing

As rotten as Liverpool have been, Arne Slot had enough credit in the bank prior to the international break to mute questions over his immediate future.

But now, after successive 3-0 defeats, the latest at home to 19th-placed opposition to leave the champions in the bottom half of the table, the Reds must question whether Slot is the manager to arrest a generational slump.

There was little shame in being schooled by Manchester City a fortnight ago, but being kept on strings by Nottingham Forest represents a new nadir in a truly shambolic title defence.

Firstly: fair f***s, Forest. Sean Dyche’s side were excellent value for a first away win that lifts them out of the relegation zone. The back four – Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo especially – were rock-solid, a wall upon which none of the sh*t flung by Liverpool stuck. And when they weren’t keeping the hosts out, Murillo and Nicolo Savona were scoring the first two goals, Savona’s assisted by ex-Red Neco Williams.

In midfield, Elliot Anderson, Ibrahim Sangare and Morgan Gibbs-White ratted relentlessly while making much better use of the ball despite Liverpool having three-quarters of the possession.

On those forays forward, Igor Jesus ran Ibrahima Konate and the furious Virgil van Dijk ragged.

Forest’s margin of victory ought to have been greater. Liverpool benefitted from a curious decision to disallow a second for Forest before the break. Mercifully, the Reds’ wretchedness made any VAR debate a moot point, at least in the context of this game.

Instead, we are left to question how Liverpool can look so broken. And if they can be fixed.

Perhaps Slot has already been too busy in that regard, trying to fix something from last season that was not broken. Liverpool were, by a country mile, the best team in the Premier League, winning the title at a canter with four games to spare. What followed was a spending spree that should have solidified their position and pushed them to dominate Europe too. Instead, it has become a very expensive factor in their downfall.

None were pricier than Alexander Isak. But the Swede again looked more like a competition winner than the Premier League’s most expensive player.

Isak was hooked with a quarter of the game remaining while Liverpool retained hope of clawing back what was then a two-goal deficit. Prior to that, his performance was summed up by his only attempt on goal: an air-kick just after the hour. So anonymous was he, it took Isak 25 minutes just to register a touch – his second in total – in the Forest half.

That was his contribution to Liverpool’s best spell of the game. In the first half hour they were at least enthusiastic, if lacking in finesse around the box. But once Forest got their opener from Murillo, the weight of the world again came down on Liverpool’s shoulders.

It should surprise no one that a team which has now lost six of their last seven in the league and seven of their last 10 in all competitions are low on confidence. But Liverpool look utterly shell-shocked, stunned, bereft. And seemingly without a clue on how to stop their slide, let alone begin on any road to improvement.

Slot’s signings will cop the flak – much of it justified – but those who made the manager a champion in his first season in English football are failing just as hard. Harder, even.

None of the senior stars – most obviously Van Dijk and Mo Salah after their contract renewals – are stepping up in any way to enhance or even encourage those around them. We can file Salah’s body language under ‘barely arsed’, while Van Dijk’s is arguably more detrimental, chuntering to himself as he turns away from another duel won by hungrier opposition.

Before Slot looks at tactical changes to correct the ones he’s already fluffed, especially in midfield where he faffed with Ryan Gravenberch to fix a problem that didn’t exist but definitely does now, the manager first must lift Liverpool’s collective lip off the floor.

That, though, has been at the top of his to-do list for weeks, months now. At this point, we have to mention Diogo Jota. What impact his death has had on the squad, we might never really know, and the Liverpool players almost certainly have some way to go in processing their grief as a group. Andy Robertson’s interview in the immediate aftermath of Scotland’s World Cup qualification triumph was evidence of that.

Of course, such a tragedy puts Liverpool’s dreadful form into perspective and, in such context, pulling apart their performances seems insensitive.

What are we to do, though? Give them a pass and dismiss the season as insignificant? Internally, that is not Liverpool’s approach. Nor can it really be ours.

Going back to basics, returning to what made Liverpool so good last season, has been suggested as Slot’s first course of action, which is hopelessly simplistic and fails to account for the changes made since.

Above Slot, the first issue now to consider must be whether the manager is the right man to halt this slide before even considering whether he can make a success of those changes.