One Liverpool player faced sharp criticism for a \u201ccompletely anonymous\u201d display as the Reds suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot\u2019s side endured their sixth Premier League loss of the season\u2014already 50% more than their total defeats in last year\u2019s campaign\u2014after 19th-placed Forest arrived at Anfield and claimed what Wayne Rooney described as a \u201ccomfortable\u201d victory.<\/p>\n
Alexander Isak, who had scored in each of his previous four top-flight games against Forest, struggled to make an impact this time around.<\/p>\n
Isak\u2019s subdued performance draws criticism
\nReinstated in the starting lineup, the 26-year-old was substituted midway through the second half as Slot tried to spark a turnaround. Sky Sports\u2019 Laura Hunter noted on live commentary: \u201cRobertson and Chiesa being readied. Isak\u2019s afternoon is over. He\u2019s been completely anonymous again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Missed opportunity to impress
\nGiven the nod over Hugo Ekitike, Isak had a prime chance to make a statement to Slot and the Liverpool fans, but his subdued showing only strengthened calls for Ekitike\u2019s return against PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Liverpool Echo\u2019s Ian Doyle rated Isak 4\/10, noting that the Swede \u201ctouched the ball once in the opening quarter\u201d and that his overall performance was \u201cnot great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Match stats underline a difficult afternoon for the club-record \u00a3125m signing: he lost all seven duels, completed just six of eight passes, failed to register a shot on target, and touched the ball only 15 times in 68 minutes.<\/p>\n
While disrupted pre-season preparations and a groin injury have hindered him, Isak\u2014like the rest of Liverpool\u2014was well below expectations.<\/p>\n
It would be premature to label him a flop, but the Swede will need a strong showing soon to silence the criticism generated by this disappointing performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One Liverpool player faced sharp criticism for a \u201ccompletely anonymous\u201d display as the Reds suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest on Saturday. Arne Slot\u2019s side endured their sixth Premier League loss of the season\u2014already 50% more than their total defeats in last year\u2019s campaign\u2014after 19th-placed Forest arrived at Anfield and claimed what Wayne …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":55083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/liverpool-players-huddle-1200x673.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55123,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55122\/revisions\/55123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}