2 weeks ago
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Jamie Carragher has claimed that Mohamed Salah must improve immediately if Liverpool is to retain the title this season.
The Egyptian has endured a difficult start to the new season and has routinely failed to dominate matches, as was so often the case last season. In addition, the goals and assists have dried up. He has managed just three of each from the opening 10 games.
Arne Slot backed him to rediscover his form in the coming weeks, while Carragher has warned Salah’s detractors not to write him off just yet. “He has a habit of making criticism look silly,” wrote the ex-Liverpool defender in his latest Telegraph column.
Carragher has pointed to several mitigating factors that can explain Salah’s downturn in form, most notably the tragic passing of Diogo Jota over the summer.
The former Red also feels the team’s transition under Slot has impacted the team’s most reliable goalscorer.
"From a purely football perspective, it has also been a period of change. After seven years in partnership with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Salah has played in front of four right-backs already this season; Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong, Dominik Szoboszlai and, briefly, Wataru Endo," claimed Carragher.
"As across the Liverpool line-up, new relationships are forming, and those intuitive understandings must develop. The hope is always this will happen instantly. Realistically, it needs more than 10 games."
At the end of last season, Salah revealed Slot had given him license to focus less on defending and remain higher up the pitch. Marc Cucurella said Chelsea targeted that flank in the win over Liverpool before the international break, and Carragher believes the balance isn’t right at present.
"There is an additional tactical adjustment impacting Salah," explained Carragher. "One of the reasons he was so effective last season is because Slot designed the team around a ‘risk and reward’ strategy with his main goalscorer.
"He encouraged him to stay up the pitch rather than consistently track back, trusting Szoboszlai, Alexander-Arnold or Ibrahima Konate to cover the right side of Liverpool’s defence when the team was counter-attacked.
"The reshaping of the midfield, in addition to the changing personnel at full-back and Konate’s inconsistent form, has enabled opponents to target Liverpool’s right side more productively."
But it’s at the other end of the field where Carragher has the biggest concerns, and claimed that Salah cannot "outrun father time." The 47-year-old pointed out that Salah has netted just three open-play goals in his last 21 appearances and missed three big chances against Chelsea.
Carragher continued: "Now we have gone from a world in which the club faced a hammering had they let Salah go, to the first tentative suggestions it might have been unwise to keep him.
"It is too early in the season for a definitive conclusion, although there are certain trends which need to be reversed immediately."
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