Nigeria’s Awoniyi shines as Nottingham beat his former club, Liverpool 1-0

Liverpool’s mini-revival came to a crashing halt with a 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest, who secured just their second Premier League win for 23 years thanks to Taiwo Awoniyi’s goal.

Awoniyi spent six years as a Liverpool player without ever making an appearance as he was farmed out on a series of loan spells, but came back to haunt his former club and move his current employers off the bottom of the table.

YOUUUU REDS! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/zWOEALag51

— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) October 22, 2022

Liverpool were without the firepower of the injured Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz and it showed as they lacked the spark needed to unlock a deep-lying Forest defence.

The Reds have now already lost more league games in the first 11 matches than in the whole of last season when they lost out on the title to Manchester City by just a point.

Victory over City last weekend, followed by another 1-0 win against West Ham in midweek had seemingly given Jurgen Klopp’s men lift-off after a slow start to the campaign.

But with Thiago Alcantara also missing due to illness, they did not have enough in reserve even to see off a side without a win since August.

Forest have stayed patient with manager Steve Cooper, even handing the former Swansea boss a new contract, as he tries to bed in a record 23 new signings in one transfer window for a Premier League team.

The two-time European champions are slowly beginning to see some return on that investment after also withstanding a bombardment from Brighton to draw 0-0 at the Amex midweek.