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At a crucial time in the season, Jurgen Klopp’s star man has gone missing. Mohamed Salah is now on a six-game goal drought in the Premier League – eight if you include the Champions League ties against Bayern Munich – and Liverpool desperately need to get him back amongst the goals.
It is not just the mere fact that he isn’t scoring. His evident desire to put an end to this barren run has seen his decision making become botched, where taking hopeful long-shots and being greedy have seen him pass up the better option of passing to his teammates.
What’s been happening?
It is clear that the opposition are now slightly more aware of what made Salah so prolific last season, in which he hit 44 goals across all competitions.
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His tally of 20 goals for the campaign so far is still impressive, but more and more teams have been nullifying him. We’ve seen defenders double up on him, and even triple up on him at times, which seems to have frustrated him to the point of his decision-making becoming tarnished.
It is no coincidence that Salah’s dry spell has seen Sadio Mane hit 11 goals in 13 games around the same period, but what the former needs to do is realise that he doesn’t need to be the one scoring the goals at this crucial stage in the season.
How can Klopp get him back on the scoresheet against Southampton?
Obviously, telling a man as intent on scoring goals as Salah to simply accept his barren spell and focus on assisting his teammates is easier said than done, so Klopp’s best bet at solving this problem is to get the Egyptian’s name back on the scoresheet immediately.
The Reds face Southampton on Friday evening in a crucial game for their title hopes. Salah actually managed to score in the reverse fixture against the Saints, proving to be a huge threat to the South Coast side throughout whilst playing in a central role – his runs behind the back four caused consistent chaos on the day.
Klopp has been using Salah wider in recent months, so a switch back to the middle is key against Ralph Hasenhuttl’s men if the former Roma man is to find the back of the net.
The former Borussia Dortmund boss also needs to move Roberto Firmino much further back into a centre-attacking midfield position to pull the Saints’ defence out from deep and allow space in behind for Salah to run into – Klopp has to do this in order to get his talisman back in the right mood ahead of the title run-in.