Nottingham Forest’s Murillo, center, celebrates (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson) Liverpool’s Premier League campaign continued its downward spiral on Saturday as the defending champions suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest. Meanwhile, Manchester City’s pursuit of Arsenal was halted by a 2-1 loss at Newcastle. After their sixth defeat of the season, Liverpool are 11th in the table, eight points behind leaders Arsenal, with a game in hand. Coach Arne Slot described the result as “very, very, very bad” and admitted he could offer no excuses for the team’s worrying form. “It’s nowhere near good enough and I’m responsible for that,” Slot said after goals from Murillo, Nicol Savona and Morgan Gibbs-White at Anfield made it six defeats in Liverpool’s last seven league games. To put that into perspective, last season the winning team only lost four games in the entire campaign. Arsenal benefited from the slippage of their main rivals without getting into the box. City suffered their fourth defeat as Harvey Barnes scored twice for Newcastle at St James’ Park. Chelsea moved into second place and moved within three points of Arsenal with a 2-0 win over Burnley. Arsenal face Tottenham on Sunday. Elsewhere, Crystal Palace beat Wolves 2-0, Fulham edged Sunderland 1-0, Brighton recovered from a goal down to beat Brentford 2-1 and Bournemouth came back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with West Ham.Liverpool are fighting at Anfield Forest’s victory marked the second season in a row that they have beaten Liverpool at Anfield and lifted Sean Dyche’s side out of the relegation zone. It was also Forest’s first win of the season under their third coach, following the sackings of Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou. Liverpool have only managed one league win since 20 September. The latest defeat could have been tougher as Igor Jesus saw a first-half goal disallowed for handball. Murillo opened the scoring in the 33rd minute, Savona doubled Forest’s advantage right after the break. Gibbs-White wrapped up the 3-0 win in the 78th minute. Even the return of Alisson and Alexander Isak, who started their first league game after a month, failed to lift Liverpool’s fortunes. Isak was substituted after 68 minutes, extending his goalless streak to six games this season. Captain Virgil van Dijk said: “Everyone is disappointed, as they should be, because losing at home to Nottingham Forest is very bad.”City Falter in Newcastle Manchester City had a chance to draw with Arsenal but were canceled out by Newcastle. Harvey Barnes scored in the 63rd minute, Ruben Dias equalized for City shortly after, and Barnes scored the winner just seven minutes later. City are now third, four points behind Arsenal. Pep Guardiola insisted: “We have a long, long, long way to go.”Chelsea close Chelsea moved into second place thanks to goals from Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez at Burnley. Neto opened the scoring in the 37th minute, Fernandez sealed the 2:0 win in the 88th minute. Burnley slipped into the relegation zone while West Ham squandered a 2-0 lead at Bournemouth, letting Marcus Tavernier and Enes Unal secure a 2-2 draw.More results Crystal Palace beat Wolves 2-0, with goals from Daniel Munoz and Yeremy Pino in quick succession to keep Wolves on a 12-match winless run. Brighton kept pace as Danny Welbeck scored his seventh goal in eight games to help the Seagulls beat Brentford 2-1. Fulham grabbed a rare win as Raul Jimenez scored the decisive goal in the 84th minute against Sunderland.
