20 hours ago
5
Mohamed Salah has been backed to kick his season into gear with a hat-trick against Aston Villa this weekend.
The Egypt international ended a two-month wait for a Premier League goal from open play last Saturday when he finished brilliantly in Liverpool's defeat by Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium. Salah has faced criticism for his performances since the start of the season, and Liverpool's only win in the last seven games came when he was left out of the starting lineup.
After rotating his side heavily against Crystal Palace on Wednesday, Slot is likely to restore Salah to the line-up against Villa, and former Premier League winner Chris Sutton is backing him to shine.
Predicting a 3-1 win for Liverpool on BBC Sport, Sutton said: "Villa have taken only one point from their past seven visits to Anfield, and have won only one of their past 15 league games against Liverpool - although that was a 7-2 success in October 2020.
"I had my bogey teams - most of them felt like that by the end to be honest - so, I am going with Liverpool to win, with Mohamed Salah getting a hat-trick."
Meanwhile, Paul Merson — submitting his score predictions for the weekend with Sportskeeda — believes that Villa's players will go into the game feeling as though they have nothing to lose, as all the focus will be on Liverpool amid the team's atrocious run of form.
"If you are looking at the form table, Aston Villa are at the top and Liverpool are languishing towards the bottom," Merson said.
"Unai Emery's men will go to Anfield on Saturday with a lot of confidence.
"Barring the shock loss they suffered to Go Ahead Eagles, Villa have been faultless in recent weeks.
"Part of me goes, 'At some point Liverpool will start winning games again.' But when you lose six out of seven games, something is wrong. And it's not just the games you are losing, it's also the confidence.
"Villa have nothing to lose here. Even if they lose this game, it's not a big problem. That freedom will give them an advantage."
Giving his verdict on Liverpool's team selection, he added: "A big question is whether or not Mohamed Salah starts this game for Liverpool. I think he does.
"If you want chances falling to players in games like these, Salah is still certainly one of them. I know he hasn't been scoring goals, but they can't leave him out of this game."
Merson ended up predicting that the game will end in a 1-1 draw.
English (US) ·