ARNE SLOT started this clash going for history and he achieved exactly that.
Match Report
Just not the kind he would have been hoping for as Jurgen Klopp’s successor. Calum Hudson-Odoi's sensational strike saw to that.
The Dutchman was bidding to become the only new manager of the Premier League era to win his first four games without conceding a goal.
Instead he became the first Anfield boss since the late, great Bill Shankly in 1969 to oversee a home league defeat to Nottingham Forest.
And he could hardly complain either, as opposite number Nuno Espirito Santo and his players celebrated at the final whistle.
The Portuguese has spent a bit longer than Slot trying to create a new side of his own, and it’s working.
Forest are now on a run of five Prem games in a row stretching back to the end of last season, Santo’s best run since he moved in nine months ago.
Slot, meanwhile, is just beginning and said himself it might take a while to bed in all the adjustments he wants to make after arriving in the summer.
Things had been going famously, too, with three straight wins to start off with. But the honeymoon is now over.
For Liverpool came up against their feistiest opposition since he took over the hot-seat – and Forest proved that Slot’s machine isn’t working at anything like the capacity he would have wanted even this early on.
Espirito Santo’s players arrived with a clear game plan.
If nothing else they were not going to allow themselves to be pushed around, and they soon got feisty with it – in particular skipper Ryan Yates.
The Kop had hardly settled when the midfielder caught Andy Robertson hard.
Alexis Mac Allister was the next to feel a little pain from him, taking one in the mouth.
He, like Alex Moreno would be cautioned late in the first half but the game plan of baulking and blocking frustrated Slot’s side.
The object was to break down Liverpool’s fluency, and for the most part before the break it worked.
True enough, Luis Diaz did scramble around him in what looked like a lost cause on the bye – line before letting rip with a low 17th minute strike that hit the foot of the Matz Sels’ right hand post.
The goalkeeper was also forced to get horizontal to push away a MacAllister header, the Argentinian profiting from a superb cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold.
He also got very, very lucky indeed five minutes from the interval.
Luis Diaz delivered a header that any schoolboy would have caught but the Belgian dropped the ball, it bounced through his legs and for one panicky moment he didn’t know where it was until he grabbed it on the line.
Yet while Alexander-Arnold, on the back of two man-of-the-match performances for England tried to add an element of style and class, Santo’s players kept their work rate high.
The international break, before which Liverpool had purred to a 3 – 0 victory at Old Trafford, clearly hadn’t done Slot any favours.
For all there superior possession, rhythm was lacking and Slot’s stone face told you so.
Espirito Santo, of course, invented that look but while he was his normally impassive self his players were anything but.
Even when Mo Salah finally got into some serious action, he produced a trademark dart into the box before firing a shot that Sels diverted at his near post, Forest still looked like they believed they could grind out a result – at least.
Indeed in the 56th minute Chris Wood could so easily have given his side the lead.
Dominic Szoboszlai got sloppy in the edge of the Forest box, Morgan Gibbs-White pounced and sent a pass forward to the striker.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk was powerless but his goalkeeper wasn’t.
Alisson kept his nerve and got his angles dead right to divert the big Kiwi’s low strike.
Frustrating was mounting on the Kop as well as the pitch.
Robertson was yellow – carded for a fierce lunge on Anthony Elanga, who had just replaced Elliot Anderson.
Meanwhile Slot decided decisive action was required.
Mac Allister, Jota and Diaz were replaced in the b61st minute by Connor Bradley, Cody Gakpo and Darwen Nunez.
Those changes allowed Alexander-Arnold to move into a central midfield role.
Not that he hadn’t been in that area previously – floating in and out of there during the first half, enjoying the freedom given him by Three Lions interim coach Lee Carsley in the wins over the Republic of Ireland and Finland.
Yet the Dutchman’s new plan backfired spectacularly as Hudson – Odoi plundered the lead in stunning style.
He had taken over from Nicolas Dominguez nine minutes into the second half, the first statement of attacking intent from Espirito Santo before the introduction of Elanga.
It was the former Manchester United winger who began the move, too, sprinting down the right flank on a lightening break.
He delivered the kind of precision cross – field pass for which he was hardly noted for at Old Trafford.
Hudson-Odoi then cut inside past a sub in Bradley still trying to get to the pace of the game and his low, right-footed curler was a thing of beauty for Forest fans as it curved beyond Alisson’s desperate dive.
