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Returning from the international break, Liverpool hosted Nottingham Forest at Anfield.
Arne Slot made five changes to the team that lost to Manchester City, with Alisson Becker, Milos Kerkez, Curtis Jones, Cody Gakpo and Alexander Isak replacing Giorgi Mamardashvili, Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitiké. This saw Liverpool switch to a 4-3-3 formation.
Sean Dyche kept to the same side that beat Leeds, setting up in a 4-2-3-1 shape.
On paper, Liverpool had three centre midfielders in the middle and then another at right-back, and yet in practice they were once again without passing options in midfield. This was partially due to the way Forest set up, blocking up the centre, but Liverpool’s midfielders were again positioned where they couldn’t receive passes.
Jones was often dropping into the backline, which allowed Dominik Szoboszlai to tuck inside into the midfield. This pair exchanging positions proved a headache for Nicolas Dominguez, who was unsure which of them he should be picking up, but most of the time the benefit of Jones dropping back was that it saw Vigil van Dijk move a bit wider, giving him more space to play forward.
Unable to play through the middle, Liverpool instead played wide. Initially this saw the wingers isolated in possession, however this did improve quite quickly. Jones and Szoboszlai offered Mohamed Salah support on the right, while for once Gakpo was making use of the runs of Kerkez on the left.
Liverpool’s best moment of the match came when the Dutchman opted to go it alone though, dribbling past Nicolo Savona, and nearly setting up Alexis Mac Allister when his squared ball was deflected.
After half an hour, the match was still on level terms but Liverpool were the team in control. Forest were defending well, yet had offered little going forward. Their strategy was mainly to pull Dominguez inside next to Igor Jesus, occupying both centre-backs, and cross from the flanks.
Nevertheless, it was Forest that opened the scoring. From a Liverpool corner, they countered and won a corner of their own, then at that corner Murillo was left free to score. Szoboszlai did recognise that the Brazilian was alone and left Morgan Gibbs-White to instead pick him up, however he didn’t get tight enough to stop Murillo from shooting.
Forest then had the ball in the net again minutes later as Liverpool failed to deal with a cross. It was somewhat dubiously disallowed for handball, although given their first should have been ruled out for offside the decisions evened out. It was another sign that the momentum had shifted however.
Less than a minute into the second half, Forest doubled their lead. After a cross ran through, they had the ball out wide, and Neco Williams made a run into the gap between the Liverpool full-back and centre-back, untracked by Salah. Mac Allister picked him up, but missed his attempt at intercepting the ball, allowing Williams to get in behind and pull the ball back for Savona to finish.
Liverpool responded the way they always seem to this season, pushing as many players as possible up into the attacking line. Using those combinations between Jones, Szoboszlai and Salah they would work the ball down the right, then cross into the box. This was essentially it for Liverpool for the rest of the game: get the ball down the right and crowd the last line.
Pushing so many men forward meant Liverpool were left open to counter-attacks, so it came as little surprise when Forest added a third. At a free-kick, they spread the ball wide to Omari Hutchinson, and he dribbled past Robertson, cutting inside to get a shot away. Alisson saved, but Gibbs-White put away the rebound.
Liverpool did mix things up a little after conceding the third, now playing down the left instead, giving substitute Rio Ngumoha the opportunity to run at players. This did little to change the outcome.
The game was another example this season of Liverpool being set up poorly and then getting actively worse with very change. Now dropping into the bottom half, they are showing few signs of improvement.
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