Liverpool head coach Arne Slot admits his first defeat – a shock 1-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest – is “a big setback”.
After three victories without conceding his side laboured for 72 minutes before Callum Hudson-Odoi’s strike secured the visitors’ first win at Anfield since 1969.
“It is a big setback. If you lose a home game that’s always a setback,” Slot said.
“Normally this team isn’t ending up in top 10, so if you lose a game against them that’s a big disappointment, although they were organised and structured really well today.
“The only thing we had influence on was ball possession because they played a lot of long balls, so if you then take the ball back you need to go past 11 players.
“We had a lot of ball possession but only managed to create three or four quite good chances. That’s by far not enough.
“If you have so much possession and play so much in their half we need to be much better, we lost the ball so many times in simple situations.
“That’s the main story from the game – ball possession was not good enough.”
This was Slot’s first match after an international break and it appeared to show as passes went astray with alarming regularity, the connections built up previously becoming severed quite quickly.
Liverpool had 10 players who played the full 90 minutes in both games for their international teams and the likes of Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz travelled back from South America.
However, that is not out of the ordinary and Slot did not look to find excuses.
“It’s always difficult, but I don’t think it had anything to do with it,” he added.
“Players came back strong and I saw today a team that wanted to fight until the end. That wasn’t to do with energy.
“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.
“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.”
Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo was understandably delighted with the result, especially as the club had taken just five points from their previous 25 visits to Anfield.
“Many of our fans today in the stadium were not even born (the last time they won) so that says how hard it is,” he said.
“I’m very happy and proud of the work of the players, they worked very hard.
“Overall, we knew how hard the game was going to be. It is all about taking your chances.”
Lando Norris’ title hopes were dealt a huge blow after he suffered a shock elimination from the first part of qualifying as Charles Leclerc took pole position at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for the fourth year in a row.
The British driver arrived in the Land of Fire bidding to turn up the heat on championship leader Max Verstappen, having taken 16 points out of the three-time world champion’s title lead across the last two races.
But the 24-year-old said he was caught out by yellow flags down the long final straight, backing off and being unable to improve his time, meaning he will start Sunday’s race from 17th on the grid.
Verstappen, who leads the drivers’ championship by 62 points with eight races remaining, was not imperious, managing only sixth on the grid as Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri claimed second ahead of Carlos Sainz and the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.
The weekend has been dominated by talk of team orders, with McLaren deciding to prioritise Norris over team-mate Piastri for the remainder of the season.
But the title challenger was unable to deliver on his end of the bargain as the notoriously unpredictable streets of Baku claimed another victim.
It was not plain sailing for leader Verstappen, who complained “I’m nowhere” over the radio during a difficult first session before he posted the fastest time in Q2.
The Dutchman will be disappointed with sixth but will take heart from seeing his main title challenger down at the wrong end of the grid.
Leclerc, who harbours outside championship hopes of his own after victory in Monza a fortnight ago put him 86 points behind Verstappen, had looked quick in every session – despite crashing in first practice on Friday.
The Monegasque loves qualifying here on the shores of the Caspian Sea and he showed that again by finishing over three tenths clear of Piastri.
Leclerc said: “It is one of my favourite tracks. It has not been an easy weekend with the crash in FP1.
“I knew the pace was there. In qualifying in was all about trying to stay as far as possible away from the walls.
“Everything felt great and it is amazing to be on pole”
British driver Oliver Bearman, on his first full weekend in F1, narrowly missed out on reaching the top 10 as he finished 11th in the Haas.
The 19-year-old from Essex, who was parachuted into Sainz’s Ferrari ahead of qualifying at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in March, is deputising for the banned Kevin Magnussen at Haas.
