Liverpool manager Arn Slott believes Nottingham Forest deserve to be in the title race after they were held to a 1-1 draw at the City Ground.
Chris Wood, who deserved to take the lead at the start of the first half, scored his 13th goal of the season and Forest took the lead within 10 minutes after Liverpool failed to register a shot on target.
Forest looked set to close the gap on the league leaders to just three points until Diogo Jota headed home fellow substitute Kostas Tsimikas from a corner just 22 seconds after the pair’s introduction.
Forest was grateful for a share of the spoils after goalkeeper Mats Sells made a series of great saves in the second half to keep Liverpool to a second successive draw in the league.
Slott doesn’t think Forest will drop many points between now and the end of the season.
“After 20 games you can judge the rankings much better than in the first five to 10 games, but I don’t think it’s because of luck,” he said.
“It’s very difficult for anyone to play against. They’ve already had some difficult away games and that shows they’re a team that can compete with the top of the league table.
“They are a difficult team to play against, so I don’t see any reason to drop many points.
“Today we conceded only one (counter-attack) in 98 minutes of total domination.
“It’s 1-0 here and it’s very difficult to score against this team. That’s not what we wanted, we wanted three points.”
Slott admitted he did not expect Tsimikas and Jota’s impact to be so immediate and dramatic.
“Scoring from set-pieces is not what we had in mind when we brought these two on,” he added.
“We needed goals, so we brought in an attacker (Jota) instead of a defender (Ibrahima Konate) and made us play more attacking football than before.
“But of course Jota scored a goal and Kostas scored from a set piece. (Jota) had a big influence, apart from Mo (Salah) he was one of the few players who had chances to score. Ta.”
Forest extended their unbeaten run in the league to seven games, but are still just six points behind leaders Liverpool.
Nuno Espirito Santo expressed pride in the way his players fought.
He said: “We have very good competition. This is the team mentality, it’s important to play, compete and improve.
“You know what I think about the table, but for now it doesn’t matter, it’s how we prepare for the game against Southampton that matters.
“When you play against such a talented opponent and raise the bar and challenge yourself, we have to give credit to our players, that means a lot to us.
“I think this was a lesson for all of us. This is how we want to compete at the limit of effort and we understood that. I’m very proud of the work of our players.”
Forest 1-1 Liverpool
