EXCLUSIVE: Fabio Carvalho on showdown talks with Jurgen Klopp and making Liverpool transfer collapse

“I don’t know, maybe… I want to say after the Forest game.”

Fabio Carvalho has been asked to pinpoint the turning point in his first season with Liverpool where his campaign started to fall away.

Signed in a deal worth up to £7.7m from Fulham when his contract expired, the Portuguese actually enjoyed a bright start at Anfield. But as the Reds failed to live up their quadruple-chasing efforts from the year before, it didn’t prove to be the introduction to life at Anfield that the forward had hoped for.

EXCLUSIVE: Fabio Carvalho makes blunt Liverpool future admission ahead of Jurgen Klopp exit and Arne Slot arrival

EXCLUSIVE: Fabio Carvalho bites back at sporting director and lifts lid on life away from Liverpool

Carvalho actually started back-to-back games for the first time in a Liverpool shirt when lining up at the City Ground in October 2022. It was his 12th appearance for the club, of which five had been starts.

Yet he was withdrawn in the 62nd minute, soon after former Red Taiwo Awoniyi had fired Forest into the lead. A 1-0 loss to the newly-promoted side proved to be a day to forget for Klopp’s men.

Eighth in the table after 11 games played by the end of the weekend, Liverpool found themselves five points off the top four and 12 behind league-leaders Arsenal. They were deficits they never looked like cancelling out, as Carvalho’s game-time dried up drastically.

“I started that game, we didn’t really play that well,” he recalled to the ECHO in an exclusive interview, taking place at Hull City’s training ground. “And after that game, I just didn’t really have that many chances. Or if I did, it would be like five minutes, 10 minutes.”

That trip to the East Midlands 19 months ago remains the last time Carvalho started