Jurgen Klopp admits star man Salah is struggling to gel with Liverpool’s new signings

Jurgen Klopp believes Mohamed Salah is suffering from Liverpool’s inconsistencies in form and an inability to forge new partnerships.

Although Salah has scored 17 goals for Liverpool this season, there is general recognition that his level has not been the same as in previous years and he has been a peripheral figure in recent Premier League games.

The goal at the start of Salah’s campaign was to achieve an alliance with Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez but, for various reasons, they have been limited to just 343 minutes on the pitch all season; Diaz has been out since last October and is not expected to return until early March.

Jurgen Klopp admitted striker Mo Salah suffers from inconsistencies in Liverpool’s form

However, Klopp (left) has been adamant that his star man will return to his former form in future.

This all feels very different for Liverpool, who had the best three forwards in Europe last season. Sadio Mane’s departure to Bayern Munich changed the dynamic, Roberto Firmino has struggled with fitness, while Diogo Jota has only played 190 minutes in the Premier League due to injury.

Klopp, however, is adamant that Salah’s pace will come soon enough, but he understands any frustration he has felt with the way the team has been playing. The Egyptian will lead Liverpool’s attack in Brighton tomorrow and his coach is looking for great things.

“Of course Mo is suffering,” Klopp said. ‘The front three were a well-trained machine, everything was clear what we were doing. Everyone suffers from it. That’s clear. It is a specific and offensive game that requires a lot of work and a lot of information, and not always obvious information.

Sadio Mane (left) left Liverpool in the summer and had formed a good partnership with Salah

You create a feel about a lot of these things, about where your teammate is and where to pass the ball without looking. That’s not right, but we can’t expect to just get back to our best and win 5-0 and go to the next game. We have to work hard. Nobody wants to hear it, but we have to.

Darwin Núñez, who is a natural goal striker, operates in a different role than Mane

If he had scored hundreds of goals in the past and now he is not scoring, that is the first thing he would think of, but that is not our problem at the moment. I’m happy if he scores one, and in another game someone else scores one and we keep a clean sheet.

Klopp hopes that Jota will be available for the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 with Real Madrid and that all reinforcements will be well received, especially as new signing Cody Gakpo is still adjusting to a new environment.

In two or three weeks, there will be a couple more options available and we can mix them up,” Klopp said. ‘Now we have Cody as a really important asset, as a connector, he can also play wing and center. When Darwin is playing there, he’s higher up, trailing, that kind of thing.

‘We never played a nine before, even when Sadio was playing the position. That’s not Darwin’s game, he wants to have other balls at his feet and it’s a real problem there. Everything would be fine if everyone participated and we could build something, but we haven’t been able to do that yet.’