3 hours ago
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There are moments in every Liverpool game where an attack unfolds and you just expect the net to bulge.
‘Goal,’ you may mutter to the person next to you in the stadium. And most times last season, the premonition would be bang on. Not this year.
Three chances like this came by on Saturday at Stamford Bridge where Mohamed Salah cut inside on to his left foot and squared up to the goal - only to send a shot high and wide into the Shed End.
It is one issue of plenty for Arne Slot and Liverpool after a start to the season that has seen them win seven of 10 games – form which is certainly not bad enough to require a root-and-branch review. But the three they haven't won are the most recent three, all ending in disappointing defeats. So there are many problems that must be addressed, and fast.
Salah is one of them - alongside a shaky defence, underperforming big-money signings, the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s unorthodox creativity, issues in build-up play and a midfield that has gone from formidable to flimsy.
You get the gist: there are teething problems for Slot’s Liverpool 2.0 after a £446million summer outlay that changed half the first-choice starting line-up.
Mohamed Salah is not the same player that we saw for the first 30 games of last season
The Egyptian's form was notably wayward at Stamford Bridge as Liverpool fell to a third consecutive defeat in all competitions
Most worrying, perhaps, is the question that some pundits have asked this weekend: is age catching up with the great Salah, now 33? Knowing what we know about this physical outlier who breaks records and rewrites statistics for a living, the answer could still be no. But there are signs of his powers waning.
Last season, the Egyptian scored or assisted 47 goals to fire Liverpool to the Premier League title in one of the best individual campaigns ever seen on these shores. He was unfairly judged at the Ballon d’Or ceremony to only be ranked as the world’s fourth-best player.
A Salah goal or assist felt as inevitable as death and taxes at times and, with doubt over his future for much of the season, fans urged the Anfield top brass to put a blank cheque on the table and give the main man a pen to write down his demands.
Now the extraordinary Egyptian has turned, well, rather ordinary. Three goals and three assists in 10 games across all competitions to start the season is better than most in England’s top flight but, by his standards, it is nowhere near his best.
After his new contract was officially announced on April 11, he scored just two goals in the final eight Premier League games of the title run-in, or 0.25 times per game compared to a rate of 0.9 per outing in the 30 matches beforehand. So you could say the signs were there.
That shoddy spell has extended into this season, with the forward shanking several chances at Chelsea, a game which came off the back of him starting on the substitutes’ bench at Galatasaray, the first time he has done so in a meaningful league or European game since April 2024 under Jurgen Klopp.
So what is wrong? And is this a blip, or a more pressing, deep-rooted concern?
There are several mitigating factors that Slot will be pondering in this international break. Firstly, it feels like the absence of Alexander-Arnold, who moved to Real Madrid this summer, is impacting Salah more than anyone else in the team.
It feels like the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who moved to Real Madrid this summer, is impacting Salah more than anyone else in Liverpool's team
Salah's 2024-25 campaign was arguably the greatest by a single player in Premier League history
Salah and the former vice-captain shared the right flank for years and would know exactly where each other were. Now, Salah has a more traditional right back in Conor Bradley or Jeremie Frimpong, both of whom like to fly down the wing rather than come inside, as Alexander-Arnold would.
The Premier League's assist king last season with 18, Salah is also finding some of the central positions he likes to wander into being occupied already by Florian Wirtz, the new creative hub of the team, or the No 9, be it Hugo Ekitike or Alexander Isak.
Salah is not used to playing with these more traditional strikers, having become accustomed to playing so frequently with a deeper-lying forward in Luis Diaz last year, similarly Diogo Jota or Roberto Firmino before that. He has not yet found an instinctive link-up with Ekitike or Isak. Team-mates are stepping on Salah’s toes, effectively.
‘Top players have an ego, and Mo Salah has been one of the best players in the league for a long time,’ said Wayne Rooney after the Chelsea defeat. ‘When it's gone well, you're scoring goals and you're winning games, it's great and the team will put up with that.
'But over the last week, I'd question his work ethic. I know he doesn't always get back and defend as much, but in the Chelsea game, his full back is getting torn apart, and he is watching.'
Strong words from Rooney that slightly miss the point. Salah and Slot had a sit-down at the start of last season where, to paraphrase, the boss was told: ‘If you rest me defensively, I will provide offensively.’
Slot has altered the way his team set up to allow Salah to always be lurking on the halfway line ready for the counter-attack, and no one could grumble at the results of that bold move. The difference is that teams are no longer afraid to take their own gamble, in order to exploit Salah's positioning.
Instead of settling for a point on Saturday, Enzo Maresca instructed Marc Cucurella to leave Salah and go forward in hunt of a goal. The Spaniard took full advantage, assisting Estevao Willian’s 95th-minute winner.
Chelsea left back Marc Cucurella took advantage of Salah's lack of tracking back to assist the winner for the Blues on Saturday
Arne Slot has been happy to allow Salah the freedom not to track back as much as others, because of the incredible rewards it provides at the other end
But is the lack of protection for Liverpool's full backs costing them in their recent dip in form?
Similar problems can be seen in other games this season, where opposition managers such as Andoni Iraola and Oliver Glasner of Bournemouth and Crystal Palace respectively have gone after the hole Salah leaves behind.
So does Slot respond and suddenly ask Salah to start putting in bigger defensive shifts? Knowing what we know about the Dutch boss, he will not. He would rather risk losing to win games, as seen with his attacking substitutions throughout his tenure. And as referenced, it was this trade-off that produced one of the finest individual campaigns in Premier League history.
Salah was straight back into the gym yesterday and nothing has changed in terms of his round-the-clock dedication to making his body a temple. He will jet thousands of miles round the globe this week to play for Egypt against Djibouti and Guinea-Bissau. Victory in either match will seal his country's place at next summer's World Cup.
He has seven goals in World Cup qualifying, four of which came against Wednesday's opponents Djibouti in the reverse fixture. Salah, captain of his country with 61 goals in 107 caps, might need these games against the world No 193 and No 130-ranked teams as an exercise in confidence-building, as he suddenly looks short of belief.
He and Slot have a lot of pondering to do during this international break if they are to get back to their best soon - and those chances are to start flying in again.
