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Liverpool's head coach declared he had to “examine my own performance” following the Reds endured a 6th defeat in 7 English top-flight matches on their own turf to Nottingham Forest and insisted he would discover a solution from the champions’ slump.

Forest, fighting against the drop prior to the match, produced the biggest victory at Anfield in their history as the Merseyside club fell to an eighth loss in 11 fixtures in every tournament. The British record signing, the Swedish striker, was again anonymous and the home side argued Murillo’s opener should have been ruled out for similar reasons to Virgil van Dijk’s chalked-off goal against Manchester City prior to the national team pause. But the manager conceded the buck stopped with him and made no excuses.

“No one wishes to listen to me now speaking about refereeing decisions if you are defeated 3-0 at home to Forest,” said the Liverpool head coach. “I should examine myself first and my team, but it does show you how a score can change the momentum of a game. Earlier I was just waiting for us to score a goal. Afterwards we barely created anything.

“Of course there is a way out, especially with the quality players we have. Regardless if you triumph or lose when you reflect you are always considering: ‘Where can we do better, in what aspects can we adjust?’ but that is different from questioning your abilities.

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

Liverpool’s display unravelled as Slot made several attacking substitutions when pursuing the match. “It was the same on the road at Nottingham Forest the previous campaign,” he said. “I took Ibou [Ibrahima Konaté] off and put on [Diogo] Jota and he found the net straight away to make it 1-1. At that time it was courageous, currently it’s probably stupid.”

Liverpool previously were defeated in two successive home Premier League fixtures against Forest in the sixties. The last time they lost consecutive league matches by a 3-0 scoreline was in 1965.

Slot said: “It was very bad. Competing on home soil, losing 3-0 regardless of which team you face is a terrible outcome. Surprising if you consider the opening 30 minutes of the match. I did not witness us producing so much in the initial 30 minutes maybe the whole season, and the first time they arrived in our penalty area they found the back of the net.

“It did not happen against Manchester City, but in every other fixture we have been the controlling team and were capable to generate opportunities. Lately it is almost constantly that we miss our opportunities and the ones we allow go in.”