Despite coming back from a goal down to secure a 1 – 1 draw and failing to find a winner at the City Ground, Arne Slot chose to look at the positives from the match.
Nottingham Forest held on to their goal after Chris Wood put them ahead in the first half, until Slot’s substitutes Diogo Jota and Konstantinos Tsimikas combined to equalise for Liverpool.
Slot praised the substitution, the team’s efforts and the grit showed by their hosts when defending because his team were relentless.
“I couldn’t have asked for more today,” Slot said in praise of his team’s efforts. “I think most people talk about the second half – that they are really positive about the second half.
“If you ask me, I am also more positive about the second half than the first half, but if you play at this ground against this team, who are in such good form, hardly concedes a chance in every single game – and I have watched many of them back… so many counter-attack threats, almost every game they have counter-attack after counter-attack after counter-attack.
“We conceded only one counter-attack here today in 98 minutes of football of total domination. Unfortunately for us, that ball immediately went in.
“Then in the second half, our ball possession also led to a lot of chances. You have to give credit, again, to Nottingham because the way they defend, they throw themselves in front of shots, in front of every cross and then there is a goalkeeper that has an outstanding season this year and tonight again.
“Being 1-0 down over here and it’s so hard to score against this team, it’s not what we wanted – we want to have three points, but in the end what I want, what the fans should want and what the players should want is that they give it all they [have] got during every single game they play.
“That is what they did today, combined with outstanding football in the second half.”
Then he praised Jota and Tsimikas for their immediate impact in the game that salvaged a point for his team.
“No, I don’t think so [impact substitutes]. I can’t remember it. Although I don’t feel any pride in the substitution because you make a substitution because you have a certain game plan for why you do this.
“In this situation, we brought an attacker in for a defender just to play even more attacking football than we already did because we needed a goal – or goals. Then scoring from set-pieces was not something I had in my mind when I brought the two of them in, but of course Jota can score a goal and Kostas has a good set-piece.”
