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9 hours ago
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Liverpool manager Arne Slot has said "the last thing" he needs to worry about is Mohamed Salah's form.
Salah was Liverpool's top scorer with 29 goals last season and also contributed 18 assists as they cantered to the Premier League title.
The 33-year-old has scored just three league goals this term as Liverpool have struggled to reproduce their title-winning form after spending about £415m on attacking talent in the summer.
After four successive losses, including Sunday's defeat by Manchester United at Anfield, Slot left Salah on the bench for their 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
"The main thing is that he always has scored goals for Liverpool," Slot replied when asked about Salah's form in a news conference on Friday.
"The last thing I worry about is Mo scoring goals again. He's done that his entire life and I expect him to do that again in the upcoming weeks and months."
Slot incorporated summer signings Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz into a revamped system in Frankfurt, but the Swede's groin injury - sustained in the first half - could see Salah restored to the starting line-up at Brentford on Saturday.
The Egypt winger has gone seven successive Premier League matches without scoring a non-penalty goal - his longest streak since joining Liverpool in 2017.
"In general in football, players miss chances and he is a human being. We are not used to him missing chances," Slot said.
The Liverpool boss said new arrivals in the summer and the departure of right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid could be contributing to Salah's comparatively slow start to the season.
"It could be a factor [no Alexander-Arnold] as he played his entire Liverpool career [up to this season] with him, but he has been in promising positions to score goals," Slot said.
"In general, quite a few changes in the squad from the summer mean everyone needs to find new connections again. It might have something to do with that."
At this stage last season, Salah had scored seven goals and had the same number of assists. This season he has just three of both.
Last season's Premier League Golden Boot winner is already eight goals behind Manchester City striker Erling Haaland.
His team-mates Cody Gakpo and Ekitike have both scored more, although Salah does lead the way with these two in terms of assists (three) this season.
It is not all bad though. Salah has actually made 19 chances for Liverpool so far, just two down on the 21 he made after 12 games last season. He has also put in more open play crosses than last season so far.
But why has there been such a dramatic drop off in his number of goals this season?
There were signs of this towards the end of last season, when he only managed three goals in Liverpool's final 11 games, so this is a continuation of that reduced form.
There are also clear signs Liverpool are struggling to get him on the ball as much, with his average touches per game significantly lower than it has been throughout his career at the club.
This season he is averaging just 6.2 touches in the opposition box, compared to last season's 9.6, and he is averaging just 1.6 dribbles, less than half of last campaign's number.
Whether this is because full-backs are staying closer to him, difficulties in adapting to the new signings, or just time catching up with him, Salah's average of just 0.3 dribbles completed per game is evidence of his struggles.
While 12 games is a reasonably small sample size, Salah has also never averaged fewer shots or had a lower xG than he has so far this campaign.
Liverpool's new signings and pattern of play could also be playing a part. And so could one exit.
Salah and Alexander-Arnold formed a fruitful partnership down Liverpool's right and the latter's departure to Real Madrid has likely affected the Egypt forward.
Alexander-Arnold played 147 line-breaking passes to Salah in the Premier League last season, at least 39 more than any other combination in the competition.
Statistics from data analyst Opta show in the 33 league games in which both featured, Salah scored 27 goals, averaging 3.5 shots per game, had a 0.48 non-penalty xG and 10.5 touches in the opposition's box.
In the 12 games in which Alexander-Arnold didn't play across last season and this, Salah has scored just four goals, two of which were penalties. He has averaged 2.3 shots per game, has a 0.3 non-penalty xG and 7.2 touches in the opposition's box.
Is it too early to write Salah off? Of course it is.
Some people were suggesting age was catching up with him when he only scored one non-penalty goal in his last nine Premier League games of the 2023-24 season, before he pulled out a season to remember last term.
And, as ex-Liverpool full-back Stephen Warnock suggested on BBC Radio 5 Live, maybe making Salah "a little angry" is perhaps no bad thing.
