KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Is Mo Salah being played out of position?

Mo Salah has not been the same player since he came back from the AFCON in February. This season especially he has had very little impact.

I just wonder is he being played out of position?

He now plays very wide close to the touch line. This means that he gets the ball much less than before and even when he does receive it he has to beat a couple of players to get anywhere near a sight on goal.

I’m not sure what the solution is but Klopp needs to find a way of getting him more involved in the game.

Maybe the system needs to be changed so he plays more centrally in a kind of no 10 position.

Thoughts?

Teams don't have Mane to contend with now so they shut Salah out by double marking him. I have seen this consistently this season whenever the ball is played out to Salah he has 2 players on him.
I believe he is moving out wider to get more space because of the way teams are playing him, it's not so much a direction given to him, but him trying to find space to receive the ball.

It was poor how we handled the Mane situation because we did not account for how much we relied on him. Having him the opposite flank gave teams a nightmare because they had Salah on the other side so they could not really double down like they are doing now to Salah. Robbo's game has also suffered greatly because of the loss of Mane. There seems to be no connection with him and Diaz because Diaz is drifting into the middle more and not staying out wide giving Robbo the support as much as Mane did.

Looks to me that teams know exactly how to handle Salah, he is never allowed to turn and he is always getting the ball facing our goal post, unless he is wide on the wing. I still think that our problem is in the midfield, we are completely dominated. Harvey is good when we have the ball but lightweight to stop the opponents, Milner has been shambles, Fabinho is struggling to do it alone. Playing both Harvey and Fabio is even worse to defend. We used to have 3 hard working defensive midfielders out of Hendo, Wij/Tiago, Fab, Milner, now we have at least one less because Harvey is not defensive and Milner should just retire. I believe that we need to move TAA in midfield and play Gomez on the right, but after yesterday's performance, I am asking myself what to do with Gomez. But we all know, Klopp doesn't want/know how to change his tactics. Hopefully Tiago lasts for some time before getting injured again. Klopp wanted to rely on the young guns, it's exploding in his face

I'm gonna call it...if Klopp doesn't get funds/support he needs this January, he walks out on us!

There definitely feels like something is broken...Mane leaving, Keita looking like he's on some sort of self appointed hiatus, with murmurings in German press he's not happy. Then the team on the pitch seem to be bickering a lot more at each other...Milner at Van Dijk in Utd game etc... The camaraderie Klopp relies on seems to be non existent at the moment.

You want him to move out or you think he will move out? I don't think it will be the latter unless he think he needs rest, as it happened at Dortmund and as he initially planned before signing a new contract. He does look lost right now, maybe because he is exhausted. FSG has been exploiting him to the limit

Klopp has just signed a long term deal, he has worked with FSG long enough to know how they operate, so I am sure he is happy with that, he always knew he would not be getting his choice of top players every year like he would at Man City or RM, plus Klopp tends to like to develop players rather than buy the finished product, but we have seen him do that with the likes of VvD & Allisson when required.

At Dortmund he lost his best player every year to his major rival Bayern, so I am sure he is just happy that does not happen at Liverpool, he knows he can build with us and he will not be forced to sell, but he may be limited on who he can buy.

So I do not see him leaving himself and I cannot see FSG sacking him, who would be better to replace him?

As for Mo, he seems to be playing to far from goal to impact the game, the forwards are still new to each other, so I think it will take time to adjust to the system.