Liverpool 0-3 Nottingham Forest
by James Nalton
at Anfield 

LIVERPOOL slumped further down the Premier League table on Saturday after a well-organised Nottingham Forest scored three goals at Anfield.

The home side failed to find the net despite the return of record signing Alexander Isak to lead the attack.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot said before the game that he needed to give Isak minutes to get up to match fitness, and the £125 million summer arrival didn’t seem to be doing much more than that. 

The Swede looked isolated from the rest of his team and struggled to create separation between himself and the defenders marking him.

A positive for Isak is that he is unlikely to be marked as tightly in other games as he was by the Nottingham Forest defenders. 

Sean Dyche’s team were compact and organised at the back, and even when Liverpool did manage to carve out chances, there was always someone in the way of the shot.

This was most notable when Elliot Anderson used his head to block an Alexis Mac Allister effort that would have found the back of the net nine times out of ten.

Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo were very direct on the wings for Liverpool. Their charges into the area didn’t always come off, though, and there were numerous occasions where they couldn’t find a free man in the box.

Again, this was as much to do with the Forest defending as the lack of attacking movement, but a striker for whom the club broke its transfer record should be finding the pockets of space on the rare moments they appear.

While the home side couldn’t find space or composure in front of goal, Forest were able to take advantage of a brittle Liverpool defence every time a chance arose. 

Ibrahima Konate unnecessarily conceded a corner, and Murillo fired in after Virgil van Dijk only half-cleared Anderson’s cross from the set piece.

Forest scored their second when Nicolo Savona finished from fellow full-back Neco Williams’s cross in the first minute of the second half, undoing Slot’s half-time plans. 

The Liverpool manager then threw attackers on to try to find a goal, but it only made the team more disjointed.

The best attacking performance off the bench came from Forest’s Omari Hutchinson, who made sure his team always had a threat going forward alongside the defensive effort.

He would have had a goal were it not for a good save from Alisson, but Morgan Gibbs-White followed up from the rebound to make it three and give Forest a memorable victory at Anfield.