Luis Garcia says Jurgen Klopp should not have started Mohamed Salah for Liverpool vs Napoli
Speaking to ESPNFC (h/t Liverpool Echo), former Red Luis Garcia claimed that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp would have perhaps been wise to rest Mohamed Salah against Napoli.
The 30-year-old Egyptian has had a tough time in front of goal as per his own standards, as he has just two goals and as many assists from six Premier League appearances. While that isn’t a very poor tally for most players, Salah has visibly looked off when shooting and passing in the final third.
The Egyptian scored one of his two goals against Fulham, and the second one came against Manchester United. The most surprising fact of the matter is Salah didn’t have a goal or an assist against Bournemouth, against whom Liverpool scored nine goals earlier this season in a record-breaking Premier League win.
Even in the Champions League game against Napoli, Salah was merely a shadow of himself and was pretty lacklustre, pretty much like most of his games this season.
Luis Garcia thinks that Salah could have done better with a rest against Napoli as the winger was part of most of Liverpool’s games last season leading to fatigue and could have done with some time off.
“I think that Mo Salah needed a rest (against Napoli). It’s very important that the players understand that it’s very difficult to play 63, 70 games that they played last year. There are going to be rotations because there’s a World Cup in between and some players are going to need a rest.”
Mohamed Salah dip in form
The Spaniard moreover believes that Salah’s form is dropping off as he is sticking to the touchlines rather than making more runs towards the box. The former Chelsea winger has been unsuccessful in trying to beat players on dribble and has been quite wide, decreasing his potency in front of the goal.
“You can see and I’m sure that Mo Salah knows himself very well, you can see that he’s not beating players one-v-one. He’s not running into the box, he’s far away from the box, too wide at times. He’s not close to the box where he’s very dangerous.”
Luis Diaz has looked like our biggest goal threat this season. The Colombian has burst onto the scene since his arrival from FC Porto earlier this year and has been one of our best players this season.
Darwin Nunez is yet to kick into form but the Uruguay international is expected to be our main goal threat up front. This could be a time when the Reds are moving away from being over-reliant on Salah.
He should no longer be seen as an undroppable player that needs to play the full 90 minutes in every game. Once Jota is back to full match fitness (he did play as a substitute against Napoli), then Klopp would be wise to rest Salah every now and then.
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We can expect to see the former AS Roma and Chelsea star in action when we take on Ajax in the UEFA Champions League group stage this Tuesday at Anfield.
