Liverpool escaped Forest, and the stats show why it felt so chaotic

Nottingham, England – Liverpool left the City Ground with three precious points and an awful lot of questions after a 1-0 victory over Nottingham Forest that felt anything but routine. By the final whistle the visitors were still trying to process how a match that veered so close to disaster had somehow stayed in their favour, and the numbers explain the unease.

Forest fired off 12 first-half attempts, the most the Reds have conceded in the opening 45 minutes of a league fixture since May 2015 against Stoke City. The early barrage left Arne Slot’s side chasing shadows, misplacing simple passes and struggling to adjust after Florian Wirtz’s late warm-up withdrawal forced Curtis Jones into a hastily re-jigged midfield.

Analyst Michael Reid, writing on Substack, labelled the contest “a proper, classic game of two halves,” a description that dovetails with Liverpool’s season-long pattern. If only first-half performances counted, the club would sit 12th in the Premier League table; isolate the second halves and they would be 4th. The disparity is underscored by the Reds’ first-half scoring rate, the third-lowest per game in their decorated league history.

Slot refused to gloss over the shortcomings, admitting “a draw would have been a fairer result than a win for us,” while Alexis Mac Allister was equally blunt: “The first half wasn’t good at all; positioning, pressing, intensity. It was not our standard.”

Yet for all the anxiety, Liverpool found the decisive moment late on, turning a chaotic afternoon into a critical victory in the race for Champions League qualification. The win keeps their hopes alive, but the broader trend of slow starts—especially away from home—will need addressing if the Reds intend to stay in the top-four fight.