Liverpool are level on points at the top of the league with Manchester City and Chelsea heading into the international break, have conceded the joint lowest goals in the league and are yet to lose a Premier League match.
You would be forgiven for thinking all is well in the red half of Merseyside. But yet, it seems there is cause for concern for Liverpool fans: Mo Salah has lost his mojo. With just three goals and two assists in 852 minutes in all competitions, his direct goal contribution (scoring or assisting) every 170.4 minutes is a far cry from the absurdly good 68.65 minutes of 2017/18.
Perhaps more worrying is the fact that in the Premier League alone, Salah has had six big chances missed in his eight appearances, compared to last year’s 23 missed in 36 appearances.
But there is also the qualitative analysis of his game. Salah simply doesn’t look as good a player as last season. From watching Liverpool’s encounter with Napoli, a match in which defensive midfielders and central defenders shined (shoutout to Joe Gomez), the Napoli back line didn’t look too troubled dealing with Salah, a stark contrast from how downright silly he made defences look last season (*cough* Watford *cough*).
17/18 was an extraordinary season for Salah. He was frightening cutting on to his left from the right wing, and it seemed he could conjure up goals out of thin air. The fact that Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino were also providing direct goal contributions of every 120 minutes and 95.18 minutes respectively meant that opposition backlines couldn’t focus the amount of energy into stopping Salah as a player of his stature would require.
This allowed Salah to continue to plunder the goals while the opposition had to figure out how to tackle the most electric front three in European football.
However, Salah’s dip in form is being hugely over-publicized and scrutinized. After playing the most games he has ever played in a single campaign, mainly across the Premier League, the only league out of Europe’s top five without a winter break and the Champions League, the pinnacle of club football, you could forgive Salah for being a bit fatigued.
Add that to the fact he carried the weight of Egypt’s world cup hopes singlehandedly on his shoulders while coming back from a devastating injury sustained in the Champions League final, you see a player who desperately needed a rest.
After Egypt crashed out of the World Cup in the group stage, losing all three games and only scoring two goals (both of which were scored by Salah), Salah played his last world cup match on June 26. He was back in Liverpool training July 20.
While Salah seemed to relish his time on vacation (see his Instagram), the emotional and physical toll the 17/18 campaign took seems to be catching up to him.
(AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
I think that you could excuse him for not be firing on all cylinders 11 matches into 18/19. Salah certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of player to ask for time off, but rotating him slightly more over the next few weeks and giving players such as Xherdan Shaqiri and Daniel Sturridge a chance to prove themselves could be exactly what Salah needs.
Mohamed Salah’s dip in form is justifiable and almost makes sense. After all, everyone’s human. All players go through dips in form.
Just a few weeks ago, Cristiano Ronaldo was in a crisis having not scored for Juventus through three Serie A games and now has four goals and five assists in eight Serie A matches. As the saying goes, form is temporary, class is permanent.
So, hold off on the one-season wonder talk just for a bit, and over the next few months we will really see if Mohamed Salah was just an extremely bright flash in the pan, or truly is a player capable of hitting that Ronaldo and Lionel Messi level.
Statistics from Transfrmarkt.com and Premierleague.com.
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