Arne Slot tasted defeat as Liverpool head coach for the first time today, with Nottingham Forest coming to Anfield and recording a 1-0 victory.
The decisive moment came through Callum Hudson-Odoi in the 72nd minute as his shot from outside the penalty area went in off the upright.
Speaking on co-commentary duty for Premier Sports (via CaughtOffside), Gary Breen pointed the finger of blame at Ibrahima Konate for blocking the vantage point of Alisson Becker.
The Frenchman had generally been impressive since replacing Jarell Quansah at half-time in the opening day win over Ipswich, but Slot has reportedly had reservations about the 25-year-old over some aspects of his defending (Football Insider).
Perhaps Konate’s positioning didn’t help Alisson for Hudson-Odoi’s match-winning goal, and that in itself may infuriate Slot, but it’d be unfair to pin the result solely on the France international.
As per Sofascore, the centre-back won six of his nine duels, completed 58 of his 62 passes (94%) and made four clearances, so over the 90 minutes he wasn’t particularly poor.
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In truth, Liverpool as a team didn’t do nearly enough in the second half – either before or after the goal – to deserve anything out of today’s match.
Slot named the same starting XI for the third game in a row this afternoon, but we suspect that there’ll be a few changes for Tuesday’s Champions League opener away to AC Milan.
It could be interesting to see if one of those alterations comes at centre-back…
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