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The Egyptian King

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I also think blanket ruling out penalties is missing something too, for two reasons.

If you're the person that won it, or are a big reason why there is a penalty, it's almost worth a goal itself. We've had more penalties received that anyone else, which is certainly mostly to do with having Salah.

Also, scoring one is not nothing, not everyone will score every single one (not that Salah does, nobody does).
 
Gerry_A_Trick said:
I also think blanket ruling out penalties is missing something too, for two reasons.

If you're the person that won it, or are a big reason why there is a penalty, it's almost worth a goal itself. We've had more penalties received that anyone else, which is certainly mostly to do with having Salah.

Also, scoring one is not nothing, not everyone will score every single one (not that Salah does, nobody does).
Click to expand...

Have to say too that my confidence in Mo taking a penalty is exponentially higher this year. Not once have I thought he was likely to miss.

He's been honing his craft.
 
How many in our team would you trust on a pen?

Mac
Virgil
Trent
Slobby
Gakkers

So there’s a few he “may” have taken goals away from.
 
That can't be right, as I was told for 2 years that we didn't need a striker
 
That's the silly thing though. I don't think we can have an out and and out striker with Salah in the team. We'd have to have an unbelievably gifted team right the way through the rest of the side to carry that.

If we had a gifted central striker, Salah would have significantly fewer goals. He might have a couple more assists.
 
It might be that opposition managers are preparing for a final with 4-5 weeks lead time and can really work on shutting Salah down. That is getting easier to so now he's not longer skipping past fullbacks anywhere near as often as he used to, but I do think that partly explains his numbers in finals. If teams can nullify Gravenberch and Salah through a combination of pressing, blocking passing lanes, and tight one on-on-one marking than they have been able to scupper us at either end of the pitch.
 
Squiggles said:
It might be that opposition managers are preparing for a final with 4-5 weeks lead time and can really work on shutting Salah down. That is getting easier to so now he's not longer skipping past fullbacks anywhere near as often as he used to, but I do think that partly explains his numbers in finals. If teams can nullify Gravenberch and Salah through a combination of pressing, blocking passing lanes, and tight one on-on-one marking than they have been able to scupper us at either end of the pitch.
Click to expand...

I think teams have definitely stopped some of the gravy through balls we'd been doing for the first part of the season.

I don't think it's that though. It's that Salah can't influence a game if we're not on the ball as much anymore, he doesn't really offer any remarkable threat if we aren't all up the pitch.

We've been playing some really negative fundamentally unsound football. We've just not been playing much football. We don't develop ideas, we don't develop attacks, we go long too much, we aren't confident on the ball, our passing tempo is slow as fuck, and our attackers are all wide apart from one another and can't play off each other. We've been completely shit.

And so has Salah. But if we were playing better maybe he'd have an assist or score a penalty, even if he was playing shit, and the blatant fact that he's playing shit would be buried under some new stat someone made up.
 
Farkmaster said:
That's the silly thing though. I don't think we can have an out and and out striker with Salah in the team. We'd have to have an unbelievably gifted team right the way through the rest of the side to carry that.

If we had a gifted central striker, Salah would have significantly fewer goals. He might have a couple more assists
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He had a pretty fearsome partnership with an old Dzeko at Roma from what I remember.
Not really true with Current version of Jota or offside Nunez. Before Gakpo got injured, both seemed to be assisting each other even if he wasn’t playing through the middle.
 
Outrageous that people think another world class player wouldn’t work with Salah considering our previous forward line.

It would only enhance Salah not take away from him or the team.
 
Dreambeliever said:
Outrageous that people think another world class player wouldn’t work with Salah considering our previous forward line.

It would only enhance Salah not take away from him or the team.
Click to expand...

Our previous forward line featured the most selfless false 9 I've ever seen. Any shit hot winger on the left who will also defend could work with Salah (and probably grow to resent him). A purpose built false 9 or somebody who is more disciplined defensively and intelligent in the build up, sure.

That's not we are talking about though. The question was about some out and out striker who is world class. That player isn't going to contribute defensively either.
 
Farkmaster said:
That's the silly thing though. I don't think we can have an out and and out striker with Salah in the team. We'd have to have an unbelievably gifted team right the way through the rest of the side to carry that.

If we had a gifted central striker, Salah would have significantly fewer goals. He might have a couple more assists.
Click to expand...

That logic doesn't work though. The out and out striker would obviously be a player that works hard off the ball as well. Not every out and out striker is walking around without doing any sort of defensive duties.
Salah wouldn't get less chances and he's already created the most big chances in the league this season and is 2nd in key passes.

We would buy the out and out striker that fits the team. Buying Isak or Ekitike would only complement Salah imho.
 

View: https://x.com/BBCSport/status/1908036938717917611

Mohamed Salah: When Liverpool nearly missed out on forward, and how 'Moneyball' strategy revitalised club

When Liverpool nearly missed out on signing Mohamed Salah, and how adopting the 'Moneyball' strategy revitalised the club.
www.bbc.com

A meeting is about to take place at Liverpool and the subject will be Mohamed Salah.

On one side you have those providing data and video evidence that Salah is the right signing. On the other side is former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

"Jurgen's preferred option for that summer was Julian Brandt, who was a great player," said former Liverpool director of research Ian Graham, who spoke to BBC Sport as part of a documentary released on BBC iPlayer about Liverpool's journey to winning the 2018-19 Champions League.

"Jurgen had obviously known him very well, coming from the Bundesliga, and knew the German market very well.

"We agreed that Brandt was a very good young player but not a standout in the same way that Mo was. From our data analysis point of view Mo was the best young wide forward in Europe, full stop.

"Roma were under pressure to sell because their finances were not in a good place, so we knew he was available for a good price.

"He played a forward and wide role that we needed to fill at the time, whereas Brandt was more of an attacking midfielder."

Graham added: "It's to Jurgen's credit that he engaged in that debate in an honest way with his eyes open to say, 'OK, I'm open to be convinced, show me that Mo is better'."

Klopp didn't need much convincing and Liverpool signed Salah from Roma in June 2017 for £34m.

The Reds believed the Egypt international would be a "future superstar" and so it has proved.

Salah, who is yet to agree a new contract with Liverpool beyond this summer, has gone on to become a Liverpool legend.

He has scored 243 goals and registered 109 assists for the club in 393 appearances and, under Klopp, helped the Reds win the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Fifa Club World Cup.

'Robust debates' and 'big arguments'
Graham was a consultant at Tottenham from 2007-2012 but "they never really had the ambition to make more" of data whereas he said "Liverpool were the first team to have an in-house analytics department".

He was at Liverpool from 2012 to 2023 and was a key part of the 'Moneyball' strategy - the statistical method Major League Baseball side Oakland Athletics used in the 1990s to recruit players - that Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) adopted at the club.

"Moneyball is really the concept of, 'can we get more value for money out of our squad? Can we get more performance per pound spent? Because, if we can, that means we can compete with clubs with a higher budget than us'," said Graham.

"We started off with about seven or eight different leagues, by the time I left we were probably taking data from about 60 different leagues so that we really understood what players could do on the pitch."

Graham worked under former Liverpool sporting director Michael Edwards, who left the club in 2022 before returning as FSG's chief executive of football in 2024.

The pair were part of a transfer committee who, along with Liverpool's manager, would "come to a consensus decision on the best players to sign".

Liverpool had appointed Klopp as manager in October 2015 and his willingness to engage in the use of data in recruitment was in contrast to his predecessor Brendan Rodgers.

"Previously, we had robust debates with Brendan about which players to sign and the two differences were our ideas about which players would improve Liverpool were very different to Brendan's ideas," said Graham.

"Brendan, understandably, put a big premium on Premier League experience whereas we felt those players were quite often overvalued by the market and players from other markets, like Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino, were undervalued."

Graham explained that Rodgers "came in with a preconception that the player he wanted to sign was the only solution for that position" and that "it was very difficult to persuade him otherwise".

In Klopp, Graham said they had found the "missing piece" and, in some cases, "a manager who seemed to see what the data saw".

He added: "He [Jurgen] is very happy to thank us for our suggestions to have stopped some of the less sensible signings, which at the time caused big arguments but, in retrospect, he could see this was a good process for signing players."

'The club and data approach needed trophy'
Klopp had managed at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund in Germany, winning the Bundesliga in 2011 and 2012 with the latter.

His first trophy at Liverpool was the 2019 Champions League, with data playing "a big part in signing" nine of the 11 Liverpool players who started the final against Tottenham - in a game the Reds won 2-0.

"The club needed it and, from our point of view, the data approach needed it as well," said Graham on that piece of silverware.

"Looking back, it is a source of pride and is some validation that data can be of help. It adds to recruitment.

"Our data analysis means nothing without the scouts to understand the traditional way of viewing a player, without Jurgen to get the best out of the players, without the ownership to trust in the process and without the sporting director to make decisions based on what the data is telling him.

"Jurgen's impact on the Champions League win, it can't really be overstated. His presence at the club attracted some really great players, he got the best out of those players and - by the time of that final - we had a world-class first XI that was quite different to the team that he inherited."

Klopp went on to end the club's 30-year wait for a top-flight title by guiding them to the 2019-20 Premier League crown.

Graham said: "Jurgen, coming from the German system, was much more happy to take that compromised approach and it worked out really well for Liverpool."
 

View: https://x.com/premierleague/status/1910361883284058430

It is not yet a crisis of confidence, but Salah is currently on his longest run without a Liverpool goal or assist in over four years.

To most players, a four-match spell hardly constitutes a drought, but the brilliant Egyptian is not accustomed to drawing blanks. Certainly not this season, where he has plundered an incredible 27 Premier League goals, in addition to creating 17 assists.

Nonetheless, this season’s standout star has not quite looked himself recently. He made very little impact in the UEFA Champions League second-leg tie against Paris Saint-Germain and the EFL Cup final against Newcastle United - or in league matches against Everton and Fulham.

Indeed, if you discount his two penalties against Southampton, Salah has now failed to deliver an open-play goal in each of his last seven outings.

What has changed? Ahead of Sunday's match at home to West Ham United, we take a closer look.

Is Salah tired?
It should be said that it has been a physically demanding campaign for Liverpool’s star man.

He has featured for all but 38 minutes of this Premier League season, ranking him fifth for the most time spent on the pitch by outfield players.

Only team-mate Virgil van Dijk has played more minutes than Salah for Liverpool this season.

If Salah is feeling a touch jaded or lacking in physical or mental sharpness at the moment, it should not be a surprise.

Untitled.jpg


Why has his goal threat diminished?
Liverpool’s drop-off in performance levels as a team has understandably impacted Salah’s chance count in recent weeks.

Over the last seven matches he has seen more of the ball than his season average, but not as frequently in the areas which matter most, experiencing a 19 per cent dip in touches inside the opposition box.

His shot count has also practically halved.

During his last seven appearances in all competitions, Salah has had just 1.9 shots per 90 minutes, compared with a healthy 3.7 in his first 38 matches of 2024/25.

Untitled2.jpg


Opponents are denying Salah space
If you leave Salah isolated in 1v1s against your full-back, there is usually only one outcome.

Having seen him torment a string of defenders this season, conjuring up eight assists and three goals from ball carries, rival sides have begun to formulate game plans which centre around denying Salah space to run into.

Fast breaks have been less commonplace of late with Newcastle (38.8 per cent), Southampton (28.8 per cent), Everton (26.1 per cent) and Fulham (37.9 per cent) all setting their stall out to allow Slot’s men the bulk of possession.

Opponents have set themselves up in lower blocks against Salah in a bid to slow him down and frustrate him, and put more players around the ball in close quarters to him.

For that reason, he has found it far more difficult to go past defenders.

As you can see in this table below, Salah’s dribbling has been poor of late, completing just two of 20 attempted dribbles successfully.

This is a huge decline from his 50.5 per cent completion rate in the opening 27 top-flight matches.

Untitled3.jpg


A combination of defensive tactics from Liverpool’s opponents and Salah’s own fading sharpness have made him less threatening with the ball at his feet.

At home to Newcastle, Salah was successful in just one of 11 dribbles, and since then he has carried the ball with less confidence, making only one successful dribble from nine further attempts.

Can Salah still make history this season?
It looked for a while that Salah may threaten Erling Haaland’s record-breaking 36-goal haul from the 2022/23 campaign, but his hopes of eclipsing that are now fading.

Ten more goals would be required to break it from his last seven outings, and despite his incredible exploits he has not produced that level of strike-rate during any of his hot streaks this season.

But the assists record is very much under threat, with just three more required to equal the 20 produced by Kevin De Bruyne (2019/20) and Thierry Henry (2002/03).

Creating four goals in the final seven fixtures is far from impossible.

Until this point Salah has made a goal once every 162 minutes, and if that level is maintained he is likely to get three or four more assists before the final whistle blows on the season.

Salah has already equalled the most goals and assists in a 38-match season, but he will now have his eyes firmly set on breaking a long-standing record shared by Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole since the early 1990s.

The pair each produced a combined total of 47 goals and assists in a Premier League season - and those numbers came in a 42-match campaign.

Salah needs just four more contributions to go past that, in a 38-match season.

Untitled4.jpg
 
The man is reportedly turning down 10x salary increase to stay here and people are saying he’s the main culprit for our recent form?

Fuck me we don’t deserve Mo.
 
Dreambeliever said:
The man is reportedly turning down 10x salary increase to stay here and people are saying he’s the main culprit for our recent form?

Fuck me we don’t deserve Mo.
Click to expand...

I know what point you’re trying to make, but no-one’s offering Mo a £3.5m a week salary - so you might want to recalibrate your figures there.
 
Dreambeliever said:
The man is reportedly turning down 10x salary increase to stay here and people are saying he’s the main culprit for our recent form?

Fuck me we don’t deserve Mo
Click to expand...

What the fuck does the one (made up) point have to do with the other?

I'm saying he's the main culprit because he's fallen off the same cliff I've been telling you he would since day one of the season.

He played too much. When he's off form, he is a thoroughly average player. So you got your wish. We've got 2 more years of him. If we use him like the last several, get used to more and more of this.

Hopefully with a game a week he can find some form do the wheels don't look so unattached.
 
Farkmaster said:
What the fuck does the one (made up) point have to do with the other?

I'm saying he's the main culprit because he's fallen off the same cliff I've been telling you he would since day one of the season.

He played too much. When he's off form, he is a thoroughly average player. So you got your wish. We've got 2 more years of him. If we use him like the last several, get used to more and more of this.
Click to expand...

I’ve already resigned myself to Dreamie posting about how great it is we resigned him every time he achieves a goal or assist and numerous people posting about how we never should of signed him for the next two years.

I’ll also look forward to the moaning about letting him get into the final year of his contract without tying up a new deal / not selling him to Saudi for £500 trillion when we had the chance, all in about a years time.

Infact… why hasn’t Hughes been working on another extension already… the lazy no good fucker!!!!
 
Dreambeliever said:
Great to see him back impacting games in the first half. He was superb and the assist was delicious.

Most ever goal contributions in a 38 game season.

I give you our modern day King!

Mo Mother Fucking Salah.
Click to expand...
I felt sorry for the poor kid trying to mark him and his assist was sublime. But, the switch of WBS and Bradley being subbed ended his impact for the day.
 
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