ReactionArne Slot press conference: Liverpool's late win at Forest, mentality, Mac Allister and more

Alexis Mac Allister's 97th-minute goal secured a 1-0 Premier League victory for the Reds at the City Ground.

His close-range finish was the decisive moment of a drama-filled conclusion, which saw the match-winner have an earlier effort ruled out by VAR for handball.

See what Slot had to say in his post-match press conference below.

On the ending...

My emotions were emotions of happiness and relief. This is probably the first time I have to do a different post-match press conference than I did throughout all these other games, because today we did not play a good game. The performance, especially in the first half, was not as we've had so many times this season. But we've been on the wrong side of the score after a good performance far too many times. Today, I think we got more than we deserved. A draw would have been a fairer result of this game than for us to win it.

But then you think you win it because Hugo [Ekitike] already got a big, big, big chance from a great cross from Rio Ngumoha, misses it, the ball comes back, goes into the net. Since VAR is there, I always struggle to celebrate too much if I think, 'There might be something going on.' You never know if a ball has hit the body where it ended up. Apparently it ended up on his arm, so it was disallowed.

Then my emotions were, 'OK, still not everything that could have gone against us this season has happened yet. Still one more to go.' But maybe fortune has changed two or three minutes later where again we thought we scored the winner, again they took a long time to check it, but this time the referee pointed at the kick-off – which meant that we won the game.

• Read our match report from the City Ground here

On Dominik Szoboszlai's play in the build-up to the goal...

I think there you can see how much confidence he has at the moment and how well he has played this season, because it's the last second of the game – at least I thought it was the last second of the game. Apparently it was a bit longer to go because after we scored we still played for one more minute. But it felt to me when I looked at the time that it was the last moment and to stay so cool in a moment where everyone, all the fans, were expecting the ball to come in and he was waiting, waiting, and in the end he brought it in.

Well done by Virgil [van Dijk] as well, to change the angle of attack to go to the second post. And Macca was not a surprise to me that he was both times our goalscorer because he played with the mentality you need to play in these games and that's why he was twice in that situation to finish. The first half was really poor, the worst we've played until now I think, but the second half was much better, controlled the game much more, had our chances already earlier in the second half. And in the first half, although we were really poor, we did not concede a lot and we defended really well in our box.

On what he said to his players at half-time...

What I just said – that it was the worst first half we've played. But we defended our box really well and that was the reason that we were still on 0-0. Because as much as Forest were the better team and were forcing us to go back, we defended really well in our box, in my opinion. We had to defend a lot of set-pieces throughout the whole game but especially in the first half. So if we could bring back that mentality to the whole pitch, combined [with] doing a few things better on the ball and maybe not lose every ball you touch, because that was almost what happened, then you know that these players can do better.

I tried to give them a bit of energy to say, 'They've played Thursday, a difficult away game, maybe they run out of energy and we for sure cannot have run out of energy yet, so maybe that can balance the game more or get the game in our advantage.' And I pointed out our second half against [Manchester] City as well, after a first half that's maybe not of the standards we would like to [have], we are able to play a much better second half.

On Mac Allister scoring his first Premier League goal this season...

Is it his first goal? Oh, I wasn't aware of that. But I think what he needed is what he showed in the last six, seven or eight games – a run of games where he's getting back to his usual level that he showed so many times last season. And he had that level also in the first half of the season but it went a bit with ups and downs, as the team went in terms of performances with ups and downs.

But I see much more consistency recently – not only in Macca's performance but in the team performance and many individual performances. But I think it's always nice for a player to score, especially if it's in extra time of extra time. So, we needed this goal, we needed that win to be on the right side of things once in a while because we've been so, so unlucky this season. And today for the first time, at least it felt to me for the first time, we've been a bit lucky this season.

On Ngumoha...

He has incredible potential, otherwise at 17 years of age you don't play as many minutes as he does in the Premier League, let alone at Liverpool. I don't think there's any other 17-year-old that has played so many minutes this season in the Premier League as he did. I don't think there is an 18- or 19-year-old maybe that played so many minutes as he did, but that last thing I'm not 100 per cent sure about. So that tells you how much of a talent he is and we think he is. He's making progress more and more and that's why lately you see him playing more and as well.

He gets stronger. Apart from his moment where he had that one-v-one, there were also one or two other moments where he showed that he stands his ground. That is, of course, what you need because you face 25-, 26-, 27-, 28-year-old athletes mainly as your opponents. We're a bit of an exception in terms of the age of our group of players, most teams we face have players of different ages and different physicality. For him to show this already at 17 years of age says something about his talent. But as we all know, talent is only the start of a career and you need so many other things, as we've shown today – Macca [is] a great example about mentality. That is something you need to get a career at this level.