One of Football365’s Premier League tables proves Virgil van Dijk’s point about faltering champions Liverpool lacking “fight” this season.
Nottingham Forest beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield on Saturday in arguably Arne Slot’s most humiliating defeat since replacing Jurgen Klopp at the end of 2023/24.
Liverpool’s awful Forest defeat: Key stats
- Lost back-to-back league games by 3+ goals for the first time in 60 years
- Alexander Isak is the first Liverpool player to lose his first four Premier League starts
- Only the second time a team in the relegation zone has won by 3+ goals away at the reigning champions
- Liverpool become the fourth reigning champions to lose 6+ of their first 12 games
Van Dijk was damning in his assessment of the result and the club’s current form.
“We concede too many easy goals,” he said. “We were not good in terms of battles, challenges, the fight, too rushed. It’s a very difficult situation at the moment.
“There was nervousness after we conceded, but not before. We tried to rush things and that’s human when you’re in a difficult moment. We’re in a very difficult moment. We don’t get out of it by just speaking about it. It will take a lot of hard work.
“It’s a problem. Everyone in the team has to take responsibility as well. Football is a team and everyone has to take responsibility. We have to digest this and take it on the chin. We need to work harder. We have to keep going.
“Those goals we conceded are far too easy and we all have to look in the mirror. I’ve been at this club so long now and we’ve been through adversity. We will bounce back but it doesn’t happen overnight. I’m not a quitter and we will keep going.”
👀 In case you weren’t already buzzing, Newcastle fans… pic.twitter.com/UYkEI84noq
— Football365 (@F365) November 22, 2025
Liverpool have a valid reason behind poor form
Liverpool clearly look “rushed” and nowhere near the level of “battles, challenges, the fight”, as Van Dijk put it.
When they go behind, there is no belief that they will get anything from a game.
Last season, this team refused to give up. The tragic death of Diogo Jota during the off-season might be the biggest contributing factor to the group’s struggles. These players are only human, and they lost a close friend they spent almost every day with.
The squad and Slot will not want to use Jota’s passing as an excuse, but it is clearly a factor, if not the factor. It was always going to go one of two ways: they would pull together and win for Jota, or they would become drained and emotionally flat. Unfortunately for Liverpool, it has been the latter, and that is entirely understandable.
This group almost deserves a free pass, especially after winning the Premier League last season, but no matter the circumstances, they’re not going to get one from most people.
Fair play to Van Dijk for saying it like it is, and one F365 Premier League table backs up his harsh but fair comments.
A damning F365 table for Liverpool
After Forest’s opening goal, Liverpool’s body language screamed ‘Here we go again’ rather than ‘We can still win this’.
They collapsed, and Forest took full advantage. They will not be the last side to do so this season.
The players looked defeated, and so did the crowd, with Anfield emptying long before full-time.
Under Klopp, and even in Slot’s first season, there was always a belief that Liverpool could claw something back. Last season, they collected 23 points from losing positions, the joint-highest in the league. They only lost three of the 16 games in which they fell behind.
When conceding first, they gained 19 points and were one of only two clubs with a positive goal difference.
You can probably see where this is heading.
In 2025/26, Liverpool have lost all six Premier League games in which they conceded first. Only bottom-club Wolves are worse, losing nine out of nine. Both clubs have gained exactly zero points from losing positions.
If anything underlines Liverpool’s lack of fight this season, it’s that statistic.
Slot can survive, but not forever
Slot still has credit in the bank, so the sack is not imminent. But the pressure is building.
He was backed with more than £400million worth of signings after winning the league, including the three most expensive transfers of the 2025 summer window. Liverpool’s owners clearly did not expect this collapse after sanctioning the biggest expenditure in the club’s history.
It is now up to Slot to get a tune out of those expensive, struggling players like Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz.
He does not have enough credit to be untouchable, and football is as ruthless as ever. League champions or not, he has to turn things around.
