Nuno Espírito Santo’s Nottingham Forest pulled off a shock 1-0 win against Liverpool at Anfield, with his team instructed to limit the influence of Virgil van Dijk.
After a goalless first half, Forest found the breakthrough in the 72nd minute through Callum Hudson-Odoi, securing all three points and marking their first win at Anfield since 1969.
Liverpool, who had been unbeaten this season under new head coach Arne Slot after winning their first three games, struggled to respond to Forest’s second-half adjustments.
In his post-match interview, the former Tottenham boss revealed his dissatisfaction with the space given to Van Dijk in the first half, prompting tactical changes at the break.
Those adjustments ultimately shifted the momentum in Forest’s favour and helped them secure the victory.
He said: “We are very happy.
“Many of our fans weren’t even born when we last won here, they know how hard it is to play here.
“We are proud of the work of the players, they worked very hard.
“Overall we knew how hard it was going to be today and it was about taking our chance at the right moment and we did that.
“At half-time we were trying to correct some things that we saw.
“[Virgil] van Dijk was breaking into spaces too many times.”
The Portuguese coach added: “Alex had a hard task going one-v-one up against Salah but I think he did well.
“But when he finished he was really tired!
“James, he pretty well managed the game, holding his position, he has great knowledge of the game.
“Now we are in the process of giving him the idea of the team but he understands it very well.”
Despite the surprising result, Slot rejected suggestions that the international break played a role in Liverpool’s defeat.
“It’s always difficult but I don’t think [the break] had anything to do with it,” he said.
“Players came back strong and I saw today a team that wanted to fight until the end.
“That wasn’t to do with energy. We simply had the ball a lot we had to create from ball possession.
“If you look at the goals we scored until now, we scored quite a few from transition moments from winning the ball back but the other team (Forest) played over our press a lot with a lot of long balls.
“We mostly got the ball in our last line.
“It wasn’t good enough today because too many individual performances in ball possession were not up to the standards that I’m used to from these players.”
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