Liverpool’s 1-0 win away at Nottingham Forest will go down as three points that kept our Champions League chase alive, but the numbers show why it felt like such a strange afternoon and why so many of us were still trying to make sense of it at full-time.
Michael Reid, writing on Substack, described it perfectly as a match that was “hard work” in every direction, including the analysis itself: “This was a proper, classic game of two halves.”
The story starts with how badly we began, because Forest’s first-half shot count was historically ugly from our point of view.
“The 12 shots Nottingham Forest had were the most the Reds have faced in the opening 45 minutes of any league game since May 2015 against Stoke – yes, that game.”
That is the context for why the opening period felt like we could not put two passes together, even allowing for the disruption of Florian Wirtz pulling up in the warm-up and Curtis Jones being asked to slot into a reshuffled structure that clearly did not settle until later.
Liverpool’s two-half split is becoming the defining stat of our season
Reid’s wider point about our season profile is the one that should make Arne Slot most uncomfortable, because it is not just a one-off at the City Ground.
If you only count first halves, Liverpool would be 12th in the Premier League this season.
If you only count second halves, Liverpool would be 4th.
We are also scoring our third-fewest first-half goals per game in a league season in our history.
That does not mean the second-half strength is a fluke, because we have repeatedly been better after the interval, but it does underline how often we are leaving ourselves too much to do, particularly in away games where the crowd can smell uncertainty early.
Forest match stats show why it never looked comfortable
If you only count 1st halves, Liverpool would be 12th in the Premier League this season.
If you only count 2nd halves, they'd be 4th.#LFC are scoring their 3rd-fewest 1st half goals/game in a league season in their history.
Full analysis in my review.https://t.co/faIeGCaaic pic.twitter.com/tbpqpw6CKh
— Michael Reid (@michael_reid11) February 23, 2026
Even in a match we won, SofaScore’s overview highlights how open it was and how many moments we had to ride.
Nottingham Forest vs Liverpool – key match stats
| Stat | Forest | Liverpool |
|---|---|---|
| Ball possession | 47% | 53% |
| Expected goals (xG) | 1.19 | 1.73 |
| Big chances | 1 | 4 |
| Total shots | 18 | 10 |
| Shots on target | 2 | 4 |
| Corners | 7 | 2 |
| Passes | 421 | 489 |
| Fouls | 13 | 9 |
Arne Slot did not pretend it was a convincing display, either, and the Dutch coach effectively admitted we were hanging on at times before the game changed: “A draw would have been a fairer result than a win for us.”
Alexis Mac Allister was just as blunt about our standards: “The first half wasn’t good at all; positioning, pressing, intensity. It was not our standard.”
That is why the Forest win felt like a “how did we do that?” moment, because the performance data and the eye test matched for long stretches, yet we still found the late, messy, decisive moment that turned a rough afternoon into a vital result.
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Two things. The performance wasn’t much different to the performance against Sunderland were we were overpowered for much of the game, somehow this was framed as a great, going back to basics type victory. Secondly, this team look shockingly unfit. Under Klopp we had a team who would not only run through brick walls, but would run all day and hunted down the ball when we didn’t have it. The current first eleven, don’t have anything like that sort of physicality. It’s why we end up in stupid losses, which rarely happened under Klopp, because when one of his sides played poorly, we were still able to overwhelm sides with a swarming gegen press.