Mo Salah

[baitman]

Salahs inability to go to the line and cross or play a cut back with his right foot is killing us.
Once he has the ball the defender knows where he's going, there just isn't the variation to his play.
No doubt he has carried our teams attacking play for the last couple of years but his powers are definitely on the wane.

[Irishnev]

He’s been really poor and certainly isn’t justifying his new contract but he has years of proven delivery behind him. I still think the system isn’t getting him involved as much as before and yes I know the system doesn’t compensate for having a **** touch etc.

He gets absolutely **** all from refs when defenders hang out if him, it’s infuriating. I still think this might be his last season and the reason he extended for 2 is that we could sell him next summer

[Angryred]

He will run out of games to catch Wayne Rooney in the PL goals chart as Slot will run out of patience if his lethargy in front of goal continues to hurt the team. I hope that this is just adjustment period with new team mates etc but could be best to sell when his stock is still high in Saudi Arabia. Salah's previous form after Afcon in the past does worry me for the next one. However, it may provide us with a silver lining as to give us a glimpse for the future to how we will set up without Salah for a few weeks

[danperkins]

He's been absolutely dreadful since the start of the year if we're honest. But then again he was absolutely electric in the first half of last season and unplayable in games... what's changed? Weird

[Exiled_red]

I think the situation with Jota's death has had a big effect on him, as well as the others but judging by his reaction earlier in the season I think he is dealing with alot, there is also the expectation on him and the getting used to his new team mates, he was poor 2nd half of last season because of the extra attention he was getting, but this year we have additional players who can do the job when he doesn't which helps massively.

We are talking about a terrible start but he has 2 goals and an assist in 4 PL games which isn't bad, it's just not his usual standard, and he just doesn't look himself which is more of the issue.

[Charly]

Sorry but he was pretty crap last year too, outside of the goals and assists. Take those away and he was a paperweight.

It was only a matter of time before his productiveness decreased. He is 33.

I suggested he would be better centrally in the past, because his legs have gone. He will probably get a decent return by the end if the season, but we havent found any cohesiveness up front and and Dom is playing rightback. Salah is totally isolated from players he knows well.

We have enough options to ease him out. The question is will Slot persist with him.

Personally I dont think he is completely done, but I think we need to manage his game time a bit. We are still 4 wins out of 4. Slot has a lot of juggling to do to fit Ekitike Wirtz and Isak into a fluid system. May take a while

[RedReet]

Sorry but he was pretty crap last year too, outside of the goals and assists. Take those away and he was a paperweight.

It was only a matter of time before his productiveness decreased. He is 33.

I suggested he would be better centrally in the past, because his legs have gone. He will probably get a decent return by the end if the season, but we havent found any cohesiveness up front and and Dom is playing rightback. Salah is totally isolated from players he knows well.

We have enough options to ease him out. The question is will Slot persist with him.

Personally I dont think he is completely done, but I think we need to manage his game time a bit. We are still 4 wins out of 4. Slot has a lot of juggling to do to fit Ekitike Wirtz and Isak into a fluid system. May take a while

[Charly]

Sorry, what are you disputing?

[danperkins]

I think he's alluding the numbers of 34 goals and 23 assists in a season which is kind of incredible in fairness and he's a huge reason why we won the league.

[Exiled_red]

I think the line "outside of goals and assists" when his main job is scoring and creating goals it's kind of difficult to ignore those, especially when in those terms he had the highest goal involvements of any player in PL history.

Yes by eye his performances dropped off a bit in the 2nd half of the season but it is effectiveness you want

[rudedog]

Sorry but he was pretty crap last year too, outside of the goals and assists. Take those away and he was a paperweight.

Apart from saving goals, what does Ali do?

[Charly]

My point was if you remove his goal and assists, he is playing roughly the same as last year.

[RichC]

Apart from saving goals, what does Ali do?

[Doc_Piptorious]

Apart from saving goals, what does Ali do?

He grows manly beards.

[badpiggy]

I think Salah himself has alluded to the difficulty he's experiencing in adapting to a changed team. Jota's death is huge, but also the departure of Diaz and Darwin. It's a very human situation but there's also the fact that he's a year older and surely a two year contract extension makes it clear to him that he's leaving soon. Anyway, he's becoming pretty droppable pretty quickly unless something changes. A mild injury that gets him out the team for a bit might be good for all concerned.