Arne Slot makes Liverpool transfer point amid poor Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo form

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has weighed in on the lack of goals coming from Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo, with the pair both struggling for form at the moment

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot.(Image: Simon Stacpoole/Offside via Getty Images)

Arne Slot has insisted that Liverpool's problems in wide areas are not exclusively down to the poor form of Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo.

In addition to the Dutchman believing that the lack of goals from those two players this season is a team rather than an individual problem — in the Premier League, they only have 11 between them — Slot also made the point that across the division, there is a lack of wide forwards high up the scoring charts.

Only two players to have hit double figures in the Premier League this season — Antoine Semenyo and Harry Wilson — are wingers. The rest are all numbers nines, in contrast to previous Liverpool teams, where Salah and Sadio Mane were the primary source of goals.

"It's not only about that individual," Slot said ahead of his side's rematch at Wolves. "If we don't generate enough from the sides then maybe we don't switch the ball fast enough, we don't bring them into enough open situations to improve these players.

"We have of course a 17-year-old player (Rio Ngumoha) who is improving more and more and more. It's not always the transfer market; the answer is also the training ground and trying to improve that part.

"But again, show me which teams are doing that so much better than us in the Premier League. I can show you one in La Liga where Lamine Yamal is playing, but I didn't see a lot of chances coming from there (out wide) from the games I watched on Wednesday.

"It's also due to the fact there are 10 big athletes who are really fast defending in and around the box. It's the hardest position to play in current football, being a winger, because there are so limited spaces and the players you face are so good."

(Image: Getty Images)

Full-back Jeremie Frimpong was brought into the team on Tuesday to add some extra pace and dynamism out wide, but that didn't really materialize during the first of two games against Wolves.

"Maybe it has nothing to do with it but back in the day, there was right-footer on the right and a left-footer on the left," Liverpool boss Slot said. "Why? Because in that era, you could go on the outside and cross it in.

"But everyone is so fast now. Jeremie sometimes tries, especially at the end of the game when other teams are tired he succeeds with it but at the beginning it is hard.

"Against these defenders, that's why you only see left-footers on the right and right-footers on the left, because on the outside in this physique, it's getting harder and harder and more and more difficult.

"Jeremie is maybe one of the exceptions that can go on the outside, then you have to be incredibly fast. In the old days, it was much more possible as they defended further away from the man. When I played, it was a completely different game."

This season has seen Liverpool start slowly far too many times. That then puts pressure on the team later in matches to find a way through when the clock is ticking.

"I am the same manager as last season," Slot insisted. "And all the years I've been a manager, my team scored every season among the most goals, except for this season.

"So maybe dive into the fact why that is? I understand if you're a Liverpool fan, you don't care at all how the other teams are doing and how they are playing, but we are not the only ones."