Nottingham Forest’s victory here last season was a blip in an otherwise commanding Premier League home campaign for Liverpool. Their repeat this season, a far more convincing triumph under Sean Dyche, was symptomatic of the problems engulfing the faltering champions. Arne Slot cannot pin set-piece failings on this one.
Forest were exemplary as they recorded their biggest victory at Anfield. Goals from Murillo, outstanding at both ends of the pitch, Nicolò Savona and the superb Morgan Gibbs-White inspired a deserved victory for a Forest side that also kept a first clean sheet in 20 Premier League matches.
Liverpool, by contrast, were a mess as they suffered an eighth defeat in 11 matches to drop into the bottom half of the table. Poor at set pieces, again, ineffectual in attack, again, with Alexander Isak withdrawn after 68 anonymous minutes, and defensively weak, they struggled in all departments to succumb to a second successive 3-0 defeat.
For 30 minutes Liverpool held the upper hand, the occasional break from Gibbs-White aside, but the failure to turn promise into the hard currency of goals cost them dearly. Alexis Mac Allister was presented with an early chance from Cody Gakpo’s surge into the area only for Elliot Anderson to produce a superb goalline clearance with his head. The Liverpool midfielder had a second shot blocked moments later while dazzling footwork from Mohamed Salah created another close-range opportunity for Milos Kerkez. A Forest defender just did enough to disturb the full-back into firing over.
