Arne Slot and Michael Owen are in agreement on Mohamed Salah as there are five \u201creasons\u201d behind his recent struggles at Liverpool\u2026<\/p>\n
Salah<\/strong> <\/a>has had quite the ride over the past couple of seasons\u2026<\/p>\n The 33-year-old butted heads with Jurgen Klopp en route to the former Liverpool<\/strong> <\/a>manager\u2019s exit, while he was also criticised over his disappointing form in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n With Salah entering the final year of his contract at the start of the 2024\/25 campaign and linked with a move to the Saudi Pro League, it felt like he was on borrowed time at Anfield.<\/p>\n However, Slot\u2019s arrival breathed new life into Salah, with the head coach\u2019s tactical tweaks bringing the best out of the Egypt international as he produced his best individual season to help the Reds win their 20th Premier League title in the Dutchman\u2019s first campaign in charge.<\/p>\n READ:\u00a0Slot accused of obvious Newcastle point and \u2018dangerous game\u2019 as Howe \u2018hits back\u2019 at Liverpool<\/a> This season has been another story, though.<\/p>\n From being the Premier League\u2019s best player, Salah has been one of this term\u2019s biggest disappointments as he has been wasteful in attack and is often on the periphery.<\/p>\n This has led to calls for Slot to drop Salah, with the Liverpool head coach claiming the three \u201creasons\u201d for his difficulties this season are a lack of \u201csharpness\u201d, the need to \u201cfind new connections\u201d and that he is \u201chuman\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s sharpness. It\u2019s so difficult for me to say why this is but I think in general, players miss chances. And Mo is a human being as well,\u201d Slot said during his pre-match press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not used to him missing chances let alone a few games in a row, but these things happen.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main thing is Mo has always scored his goals for our club. The last thing I worry about is Mo start to score goals again because that\u2019s what he does his whole life and that\u2019s what I expect him to do in the upcoming weeks and months for our club.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE ON F365\u2026 He added: \u201cMaybe his whole Liverpool player he played with Trent, so it could (be that).<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s been in promising positions often enough to score goals, maybe with Trent even more.<\/p>\n \u201cBut in general, if you have quite a few changes in the summer then everyone has to find new connections again.<\/strong> Mo is no exception to this becuase he is a human being like every other player.<\/p>\n \u201cIn an ideal world you play every single time with the same team. That\u2019s not realistic for a team that plays every three days.<\/p>\n \u201cBut even if we wanted to, it was not possible because Jeremie Frimpong has been in and out with injuries a few times, same with Connor Bradley. So I think this might be one of the reasons why we haven\u2019t been as consistent as last season.\u201d<\/p>\n Pundit Michael Owen agrees with Slot that the personnel is a factor impacting Salah, with him, Conor Bradley and Trent Alexander-Arnold to blame, while his age could also be at play.<\/p>\n \u201cSalah has been scoring goals for years and years. Nobody would be surprised if he scored in his next game and went on a run. If there\u2019s anyone in the Premier League you shouldn\u2019t doubt, it\u2019s him,\u201d Owen said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat said, if there\u2019s something more going on, then age could be a factor \u2013 he\u2019s 33 now. I retired at that age myself, so you can\u2019t go on forever.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one possible reason. Another is that there\u2019s no Trent Alexander-Arnold feeding him those balls anymore \u2013 the dynamic has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cConor Bradley plays differently, he looks to run past Salah rather than serve him. I did some analysis on TV showing that Salah is picking up the ball about 10 per cent deeper on average than last season.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tactics haven\u2019t changed, but the personnel have. Or it could just be that the team isn\u2019t firing yet. Every attacking player goes through a spell like this. It\u2019s more likely just a blip, and he\u2019ll bounce back soon, but it could be a bit of all the above.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot and Michael Owen are in agreement on Mohamed Salah as there are five \u201creasons\u201d behind his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[11844,748,393,4884,225,179,2719,1128,12,101,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-525369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-alan-shearer","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-liverpool","14":"tag-michael-owen","15":"tag-mohamed-salah","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115430652880965519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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