Liverpool's Arne Slot admits Nottingham Forest are hard to break down

Slot, whose tactical substitutions led to Liverpool's equaliser, was generous in his assessment of Forest's performance.

Forest took an early lead through Chris Wood, who scored his 13th goal of the season within the first 10 minutes.

The home side dominated the first half, restricting Liverpool to a toothless display and earning a deserved advantage at the break.

However, Slot's decision to introduce Diogo Jota and Kostas Tsimikas midway through the second half paid immediate dividends.

Just 22 seconds after coming on, Jota headed home from a perfectly delivered Tsimikas corner, levelling the score.

"After 20 games you can judge the table much better than the first five to 10 games and I don't think they're there because of luck," said Slot.

"It's so hard for everyone to play against, they have already had some difficult away games and it shows you they are a team that can compete with the top end of the league table.

"I see no reason for them to drop a lot of points, because they are a difficult team to play against.

"We only conceded one (counter-attack) here today in 98 minutes of total domination.

"Being 1-0 down here and it's so hard to score against this team, it's not what we wanted, we wanted three points."

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