It will come as little comfort to Arne Slot that a sizeable number of Liverpool’s followers had already walked away by the time his side were down by three. They had seen enough and, most damningly, they had seen it all before.
When will this tailspin end? And does Slot have the nous to correct it? Those questions are growing in volume, aggression and urgency around a title defence of ever-diminishing returns.
Their run now stands at six defeats in seven, but there are other data points and observations to cover how the mighty have fallen so far and fast.
One of them concerns set-pieces – recent masters of the art, Liverpool now resemble the dopiest of apprentices, with nine conceded via dead-balls in the Premier League alone. Murillo sends his thanks.
Then there’s the will. The sheer desire to fight. We saw none of that in the second goal, partially gifted to Nicola Savona by a defence that lacked the wit to track a Neco Williams run or the guts to mount a proper tackle on the same guy. Goodness, we shouldn’t be able to say that about a Liverpool side, but just watch the tape if you don’t believe it.
Finally, where was the pride? Where was the resistance against a side who arrived with a little wind in their sails but only two teams beneath them prior to kick-off. By the time Nottingham Forest finished counter-punching their way to this mauling, they had recorded their biggest ever victory at Anfield and Liverpool were left processing a negative goal difference. The chorus of boos that sent them off the field was the only thing they deserved all evening.
Naturally, we will see this result through the prism of Slot and a side that has badly lost its way.
But we should also talk about Sean Dyche and the quality of his work. Where Ange Postecoglou could only misplace his resources, Dyche has resurrected Forest by enabling his players to operate to their strengths.
It was best shown by Murillo, who was immense for reasons beyond a scoring contribution. He defended exceptionally, as did Nikola Milenkovic, which is not unrelated to the fact that they have been freed from a mindless requirement to keep to Postecoglou’s high line. Dyche’s genius has been in his embrace of simplicity.
But there was more. Elliot Anderson excelled, same as Morgan Gibbs-White, scorer of the third.
And yet so much of it was allowed by Liverpool’s deficiencies, which also saw a continuation of Alexander Isak’s struggles. His wait for a Premier League goal has now passed 202 days and this was a performance that offered zero silver lining to that statistic.
His inclusion was one of five changes made by Slot. Of the side trounced by Manchester City prior to the international break, Florian Wirtz, Conor Bradley, Andy Robertson and Giorgi Mamardashvili also stepped out for Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Milos Kerkez and Alisson Becker, starting for the first time in two months.
Some of the tweaking was enforced; some of it was desperation. In the nuts and bolts, it meant the use of Dominik Szoboszlai as a right back, which is well within his capabilities, as he has shown previously, but carried the consequence of stripping Slot’s midfield of his most reliable attacker.
The first half here was a case in point. Liverpool dominated possession and had the best of the chances, but yielded precious little, especially in the areas Szoboszlai usually populates. Curtis Jones, taking up the responsibility, produced very little. His relationship with Isak was also non-existent, but that traced mainly to the striker’s positioning – across the first 20 minutes he had a single touch.
Of those who did cut through, their moments were fleeting. Mo Salah, for one. His best contribution was a superb run and pass for Milos Kerkez, who then botched the opportunity by scooping over the bar.
There were similar frustrations for Alexis Mac Allister, who had the first chance of the match but somehow saw it blocked on the line by Elliot Anderson. To be fair to Mac Allister, Anderson was everywhere, an omnipresent force in all parts of the pitch. His claim for a starting role at the World Cup with England is growing ever stronger.
From those interventions, Forest were able to burgle Liverpool with a first-half lead.
The goal followed the familiar path of a set-piece, with Vergil Van Dijk heading Anderson’s delivery clear, but only as far as Murillo. With a touch to set himself, he curled low past Alisson.
The strike required a VAR check to ascertain if Alisson was unsighted by Dan Ndoye, who was hovering in front of him in an offside position.
Unlike the City game, when Robertson was deemed to be interfering with play in a similar scenario, the goal stood and fostered a sense of injustice.
A moment later, that maybe faded a little when an Igor Jesus goal was disallowed for an iffy ruling that he had controlled with his arm.
But the reprieve didn’t last long - within a minute of the second half, Forest got their second. Slot was furious and he had two good reasons.
In the first instance, that meant Alexis Mac Allister’s failure to track Williams’s run – a blame shared with Salah - and in the second, the Argentine was weak in the challenge when he finally caught up to his man, prior to being turned. The ball to Savona was no less precise and the finish sufficient for breathing room.
Slot reacted by switching to a 4-3-3 but it only got worse, illustrated by a third goal when Omari Hutchinson lacerated Rio Ngumoha and Andy Robertson on the run before having his shot saved by Alisson. Gibbs-White, left all alone in the middle, buried the rebound.
Slot’s only blessing is that there was a reduced cast of witness by then.