Mo Salah is one of Liverpool’s most productive players even if he isn’t playing like before new deal

Jurgen Klopp and his Liverpool players had no shortage of questions at the Emirates.

Over the course of a pulse-pounding, punishing afternoon, they came from all corners – the tireless running of Gabriel Martinelli, the tenacity of Gabriel Jesus and, finally, the overcrowded room of reporters eager to rummage through the rubble of another defeat leaving Liverpool 14. . points away from the Premier League top. Only at the end did Klopp threaten to burst.

The Liverpool manager gave a wry laugh. He bent his head to the bed with microphones. He turned to his media official: “Why are you giving away such questions?” Klopp joked before offering his own theory. “He’s new to the job.”

Klopp had just been questioned on the latest topic of a difficult post-match press conference. Mohammed Salah. In particular why the Liverpool manager chose to replace his Egyptian king with 21 minutes left.

And after the false outrage came a more considered response.

“We had to defend at a high level and we tried to put Hendo (Jordan Henderson) on that side,” Klopp said.

‘Mo has done an incredible amount, a great workload, he has worked a real shift.

‘That is sometimes very intense and we thought that that’s why we could do it with Hendo. We still wanted to win when we took the striker away.’

Given the long list of talking points from Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat, it all felt quite trivial.

Klopp certainly spoke more about the VAR, Jesus’ acting skills and Liverpool’s unfortunate ability to ‘bring down with your behind what you have built with your hands’.

But the question had merit. At 2-2, Liverpool were chasing an important win and yet Klopp decided to sacrifice Liverpool’s attacking foothold of the past five seasons.

No wonder the replacement drew loud, ironic cheers from the Emirates crowd. Yes, Salah struggled to make much of an impact, but Arsenal have had enough on the receiving end of its magic in recent years.

They’ve also seen how a new, bumper contract can herald a curious decline in even the best players. Especially those from the wrong side of 30. Not long ago, both Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang linked their futures to Arsenal for a hefty weekly fee. Before long, both were struggling for form and causing friction off the field. Both were eventually paid to leave the club.

Salah’s dip was unremarkable by comparison. The 30-year-old became the highest-paid player in Liverpool’s history when he signed a new three-year deal in July that ended months of uncertainty and allegations that Salah was flirting with Real Madrid.

Klopp predicted that, with Salah now free of distractions, Liverpool would reap the rewards. Unfortunately, the attacker, whose form declined in the second half of last season, continued to stutter.

Now, some context: Salah has still scored five goals this season and made four in 12 appearances this season – no Liverpool player has been involved more. It’s hardly time to hit the panic buttons.

But Sunday’s defeat provided more evidence that Liverpool have problems to solve. And that Salah isn’t quite the unstoppable, unstoppable force that he’s been for most of his time on Merseyside. The numbers support what the eyes can see.

In the first eight games of this Premier League season, Salah scored almost half the pace of previous years – 0.3 goals per 90 minutes compared to an average of 0.7 between 2017 and 2022. His shot conversion has almost halved, his dribbling is also less effective.

Strangely, however, this decline has not occurred across the board. Salah is currently scoring 0.4 goals per game – the combined highest score of all his seasons in England.

This year, he has created 26 chances in eight league matches. Or 3.25 per game, almost double his average in previous campaigns.

There are important caveats here, namely: it is early October, the season is still young.

But those numbers point to something more nuanced than a simple dip in form. They suggest Salah’s role in the Liverpool squad has been slightly modified.

So what could explain that? There is little doubt that Sadio Mane’s departure has destabilized Liverpool’s front line. How could it not? Given Mane’s importance to Klopp and the relationship he and Salah had built.

His replacement, Darwin Nunez, has added another, more traditional focal point to Liverpool’s attack. Unlike Diogo Jota or Roberto Firmino, Nunez doesn’t instinctively drop into the pockets, leaving room for Salah to pounce.

This season, however, injuries and suspensions have forced Klopp to shake his pack a lot more than in some previous seasons.

No wonder the chemistry that has long made Liverpool greater than the sum of its parts has been suppressed.

Then there’s the simple math: Salah’s grades since his return to England have been ridiculous. It is almost impossible to sustain them year after year.

But all that didn’t stop Mikel Arteta from taking precautions on Sunday.

The Arsenal manager caused a surprise for the Emirates, choosing Takehiro Tomiyasu as left-back to face the threat from Salah. “Thinking about doing that to Salah and actually doing it is another story,” Arteta admitted afterwards.

But it worked. Salah had no hand in either of Liverpool’s goals and had few openings either. It took him almost 15 minutes to get his first chance to drive in Tomiyasu. The Japan international won the struggle and Arsenal came forward with the ball. That caused huge cheers from the Emirates, the kind of cheerful response that greeted Salah’s substitution after an afternoon of frustration in which he and Liverpool left with nothing.