Liverpool plays an important match against Manchester City on Sunday in the English Premier League, with a difference of one point between the two teams, with Pep Guardiola’s team leading the standings.
Did not score Mohamed Salah Liverpool since February – should Jurgen Klopp care about the Egyptian striker’s level ahead of the club’s crucial trip to Manchester City on Sunday?
Liverpool continues to chase Manchester City at the top of the English Premier League, as it trails it by one point, with only 8 games remaining this season.
And “Sky Sports” published a lengthy report to discuss the level of Mohamed Salah before the upcoming match against Manchester City.
Liverpool travel to Manchester City with question marks hanging over Salah, who despite topping the Premier League’s top scorer chart, having scored 20 goals in 28 games so far this season, has looked lackluster in recent weeks.
Salah still has to agree to a new contract at Anfield, despite his current contract expiring in the summer of 2023, while he recently suffered a double grief with his country after losing the African Nations Cup final on penalties to Senegal, then failed to qualify for the World Cup and lost Others in front of the same opponent.
All this has led to a lot of uncertainty recently over Salah’s future on Merseyside, plus a relative loss of form in front of goal means all eyes will be on the player on Big Sunday.
With all these factors, Sky Sports asked, should Liverpool fans be concerned about Mohamed Salah?
Has Salah really lost his offensive advantage?
When Salah entered Chelsea’s normally insurmountable defense to score a contender for the goal of the season again, at Stamford Bridge at the turn of the year, there were few attackers in world football he could reasonably claim to be his equal.
The 29-year-old had enjoyed an impressive first half of the season becoming the first Liverpool player to net 10 consecutive games when he scored a hat-trick in Liverpool’s 5-0 win at Manchester United in October.
Salah set a record number of goals for the Reds, doing so in fewer matches – 151 – than any other player at the club and then headed to the Africa Cup of Nations in early January.
However, since returning from the tournament at the beginning of February, it has looked like little struggle for Salah, who scored five goals in 10 matches before the international break in March – but three of them were from penalties, while, incredibly, the striker who… He has usually had a sharp edge of scoring in open play since Liverpool’s victory over Norwich on February 19.
Not only that, but he did Jürgen Klopp He also replaced his star player after 69 minutes and 61 minutes in each of Liverpool’s last two matches against Watford and Benfica, respectively.
However, Klopp insists there is nothing to worry about with Salah, who is just going through a fleeting phase after the recent hard workload of both club and country, and the German coach said recently when asked about Salah’s level: “Maybe he didn’t score from open play or anything. Another, maybe a penalty here or there, that’s not very important.”
He added: “The level of performance is important to me, and the threat it poses to other teams is how he brings the players together in the moments when he gets the ball, maybe two or three players go to him in these moments.”
He continued: “Sometimes he can decide in a better way, no doubt about that, and pass the ball faster and all these things, but it is a difficult period for Sadio (Mane) and Salah, with the African Cup and back to us immediately again with all the matches.”
The one thing that cannot be denied is that Salah has the potential to play a lot of matches at this point in the season.
The striker, who is rarely injured, has played in 28 of his 30 Premier League games so far this season, while also making appearances in all nine Champions League matches, as well as winning the League Cup final over Chelsea, with a total of 3,156 minutes.
But this does not take into account his appearance with the Egyptian national team, which he represented in both the African Nations Cup matches and this year’s World Cup qualifiers.
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Salah in statistics – what do the numbers say?
Return is often limited to Leferball On the arrival of Klopp and his signings with Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, but there is also Mohamed Salah, he joined the Reds for £39.5m in the summer of 2017, and the team proceeded to secure a second consecutive place in the top four and reached the Champions League final that season .
Since making his debut for the club, Salah has scored 115 Premier League goals – some 15 more than Harry Kane, and provided 43 assists, in 14,470 minutes.
Only three players provided more assists: Kevin De Bruyne and teammates Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson, who also became key players in the first team during Salah’s first season at Anfield.
Al Masry continues to dominate the charts as well, this season, Salah is leading the way again with 20 league goals.
What makes his comeback even more special is how it was achieved by a player primarily positioned on the right flank.
Salah is known for strength and has not started on 18 of his potential 182 Premier League matches since joining the club.
With commitments with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations meaning he has now started 35 matches for club and team in all competitions and there has been a dip.
Salah averaged 0.71 goals without penalties per game until early December, but that percentage has fallen three times to just 0.21 since then, and the same holds true for assists as well.
However, his expected returns on both measures have either remained stable or have actually improved, indicating that his clinical superiority has waned since the holidays.
Salah’s penalty kick rate has hit rock bottom for the first time this season, but the sudden interruption is not a cause for concern after such a strong start to the season, and he wouldn’t rule out restoring his form against Manchester City.
Can Klopp afford to rest Mohamed Salah against Manchester City?
All this means that Klopp now has a huge dilemma in Sunday’s encounter at Al Ittihad – stick to his faulty striker, or sit on the bench and go with his most brilliant men?
Former Liverpool striker John Aldridge believes Salah should start the match on the benchHe told Sky Sports: “If you are at your level, Mohamed Salah will not join the team, as much as he is good, as much as he is wonderful, as much as we love him, at his current level, he is struggling.”
Klopp now has more attacking options at his disposal after the additions of Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz, meaning he could practically start defining the title on Sunday without the Premier League’s top scorer, although it would still be a massive gamble on his part.
He said, “I think the gamble for me will be between Mohamed Salah and Kylian Mbappe, they will be the ones who will divide people now in the way that Messi and Ronaldo divide people for many years.”
“But I think Salah has had the season, and the numbers he’s got compared to anyone else in the Premier League, which is the best league in the world right now, just shows how far ahead of anyone else in the Premier League he is.”