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Mohamed Salah has been told his struggles this season are partly due to the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The 33-year-old has had the worst start to a Premier League season of his Liverpool career with just two goals in seven league games. His sole in-play goal came in the opening-day 4-2 victory over Bournemouth while his overall impact on the team has noticeably lessened since last season.
The arrivals of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak have injected tons of attacking talent in the Reds' forward line but chemistry has yet to fully gel between the trio, and Salah.
There's been quite the turnover behind Salah with the right-back position a cause of concern with Slot who has rotated Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong and Dominik Szoboszlai in the position.
The lack of consistency is a far cry to what Salah had been accustomed to for the entirety of his Anfield career with Alexander-Arnold a regular fixture on the right side of defence.
The pair had combined for a special relationship on Liverpool's right flank for eight years and one that was always going to be missed after the 27-year-old departed earlier this summer for Real Madrid.
Speaking exclusively to Paddy Power, Peter Crouch stopped short of saying Salah's poor form has left in at risk of a starting spot for Slot but did claim Alexander-Arnold's absence has hit the Egyptian hard.
The ex-Reds striker said: "I don't think he'll be fighting for his place now. He'll play in the big games, but there's no doubt it's been frustrating - certainly for him. Losing Trent [Alexander-Arnold] will have been an issue for him.
"It was working so well down that right hand side, and now it's Szobozslai and Frimpong. There's no doubt he hasn't been the same player of last season. He might not be the very first name on the team sheet - Van Dijk and Allison maybe - but he'd still be third for me! Class is permanent, he's still fit as a fiddle and I think in big games he's still going to turn up."
After a triumphant international break where Salah netted twice in a 3-0 win against Djibouti to book Egypt's place in the FIFA World Cup next year, the winger can bounce back at club level on Sunday when the Reds take on Manchester United.
After a run of three losses in a row across all competitions, Virgil van Dijk was insistent that his side must improve following a surprisingly dismal period of form. "It's pretty clear that we have to improve, offensively, defensively, in possession, set-pieces but the matter of fact that in total, we won seven out of 10 and we still have so much to improve," he said, speaking to Sky Sports.
"You can put it the other way and put into perspective that if we improve those things, it could be a very special season. We know how the world works and we know there's a lot of noise, analysis on certain things, it's down to us to focus on the target ahead."
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