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Arsenal forward Gabriel Martinelli has praised Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah, with the Egyptian having cemented himself as a Premier League great in the last few seasons.
Martinelli, speaking to ESPN, was asked to name his top three wingers in world soccer. And alongside two teammates — Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) and Vinicius Junior (Brazil) — he also picked Liverpool's number 11.
This season has not gone so smoothly for Salah. He has scored three goals in all competitions, but two of those were from the penalty spot. Nonetheless, class is permanent and the Egyptian will be hoping to get back on track soon.
Earlier in the week, Slot responded to comments made by Marc Cucurella after Chelsea "targeted" a lack of tracking back by Salah against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago.
"What do Florian Wirtz and Dominik Szoboszlai have to do with Cucurella attacking Mo Salah?" he said. "I think they’re both attacking midfielders and both are expected to defend, like all our 11 players are expected to defend.
"So yes, in this particular case, I heard the comments of Cucurella. I also saw how they scored for 2-1. But I could also show you five or six moments where Mo could have made the difference for us.
"And if that could have happened, we would have had the conversations like last season, where he so many times made the difference for us. If that then doesn’t happen, you probably get comments like this.
"It’s always the balance between winger and full-backs that is quite [difficult]. I want our full-backs to attack as well, so we have to find the right balance in that.
"We are conceding too many crosses compared to last season and this is something I’m aware of and we have to do better."
Salah has caused plenty of problems for Manchester United over the years. He will hope to do something similar this weekend as the Reds aim to get back to winning ways.
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"I think it should not matter who we are playing on Sunday," Slot continued. "If you’ve lost three games in a row and you are in a Liverpool shirt, it doesn’t matter who your opponent is. You have to react.
"If there’s one thing I cannot blame the players for, it is that they give everything they have every single game. They go all in from the first to the last minute. This is what we did in the last three games as well.
"We, in all three games, had to come back from being 1-0 down. In two games we managed to do so, but unfortunately lost in the end when we were having chances in both games maybe more than our opponents to win it.
"But if you’ve lost three in a row, it doesn’t matter if Man United is coming or Brentford next week. There should always be a reaction. Not only from Mo, from all the players."
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