Mohamed Salah is a shadow of himself – and Arne Slot must keep ineffective Liverpool legend on the bench to build on encouraging Eintracht Frankfurt thrashing.
Liverpool’s 5-1 rout of Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League came as a major boost for Arne Slot’s side after four successive defeats, but one man didn’t seem in the mood to celebrate after the final whistle. Mohamed Salah clapped the away fans at Deutsche Bank Park, but then headed straight for the tunnel instead of revelling in the final result with his euphoric team-mates.
Although it wasn’t quite the strop some outlets have suggested, Salah’s body language certainly told the story of a man who is enduring the worst period of his entire Liverpool career. Slot made the bold call to drop last season’s PFA Player of the Year to the bench as he shifted from his typical 4-2-3-1 formation to a 4-4-2, with £116 million ($155m) summer signing Florian Wirtz covering Salah’s spot on the right flank, and it paid off handsomely.
The Reds produced by far their most complete display of the season to demolish Eintracht, with Salah reduced to a 16-minute cameo in which he offered little to nothing. The 33-year-old managed 12 touches, lost possession four times and missed two big chances, including a poor 89th-minute finish as he selfishly opted to shoot from a tight angle instead of squaring to Wirtz for what would have been a certain sixth goal for Liverpool.
Of course, Salah has an endless amount of credit in the bank with the Anfield faithful. His status as a club legend and one of the greatest players in Premier League history can never be taken away. However, as we edge towards the midway point of his ninth season at Liverpool, Salah is now showing clear signs of decline.
The Reds can’t afford to carry any passengers if they want to lift more silverware come May, and right now, that’s exactly what Salah is. For Liverpool to build on Wednesday’s victory, Slot must continue to keep the ‘Egyptian King’ out of his starting XI.
‘Technique looks well off’
Slot had little choice but to take Salah out of the firing line after his woeful performance against Manchester United last weekend. Facing Liverpool’s arch-rivals traditionally brings the best out of Salah, who had scored a staggering 16 goals in 17 appearances against the Red Devils before Sunday’s clash at Anfield. There was no fear factor around him this time, though.
Salah’s decision-making and execution let him down throughout the 2-1 defeat, most notably when he fired wide from eight yards out just after the hour mark, squandering a golden opportunity that he would, not so long ago, have dispatched with ease.
Slot defended Salah after the game, but his actions spoke louder than words, with the Dutchman opting to substitute the attacker for Jeremie Frimpong in the 85th minute, when Liverpool were chasing an equaliser. United legend and Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville was among those left shocked by Salah’s ineffectiveness, and suggested it could be “one season too many” for the Egypt international.
“Usually a player getting towards the end of his career, what you notice is the physical decline,” he said on the Gary Neville Podcast. “And I’m not seeing a physical decline in him in respect of sort of like some of his sprints look quite sharp, he looks busy in the box. But just like crazy things like the ball comes to the back post, his technique on his kicking and he’s sort of crossing, that’s the thing that looks well off.”
Should have walked away on top
Those technical issues have been clear throughout the 2025-26 campaign. Salah has now gone seven Premier League games without a non-penalty goal for the first time since joining Liverpool from Roma in 2017, and his numbers have fallen drastically when compared to this time last season.
He racked up 10 goal contributions in Liverpool’s first eight league games under Slot, but has just four to his name this term. Aside from his match-winning turn against Atletico Madrid on matchday one in the Champions League, Salah has been a shadow of the man who emerged as the early favourite for the 2025 Ballon d’Or.
It’s a nightmare situation that Liverpool would have never seen coming when handing Salah a new two-year contract extension in April. Fenway Sports Group (FSG) had previously been reluctant to sign off on lucrative new deals for players over the age of 30, but made special exceptions for Salah and Virgil van Dijk, who has also suffered an alarming dip in form in recent months.
Maybe Neville is right in the case of Salah: he should have walked away on top. The final chapter in Salah’s Liverpool story now threatens to be an ignominious one, with a 2026 transfer to long-time suitors in the Saudi Pro League not out of the question if his struggles continue.
Trent-shaped hole
Salah has not just become a bad footballer overnight, though. There are mitigating factors that cannot be ignored, including Trent Alexander-Arnold’s summer transfer to Real Madrid.
Alexander-Arnold was Salah’s partner on the right side of the pitch for eight years; they had a near telepathic understanding and brought the best out of each other. Without the constant supply of defence-splitting passes from Alexander-Arnold, Salah would not be third on Liverpool’s all-time scoring list, and Slot may not have delivered the Premier League title in his first year at the helm.
Slot also adopted a “risk and reward” stance with Salah last season that allowed the Egyptian the freedom to stay in advanced areas. “As long as you rest me defensively, then I will provide offensively,” Salah famously said to Sky Sports in April.
Unfortunately, Salah is no longer living up to that promise, and Liverpool have lost all balance defensively. Conor Bradley and Frimpong, the latter of whom followed Wirtz to Anfield from Bayer Leverkusen, have both failed to fill the void at right back left by Alexander-Arnold, with Slot turning to Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endo for cover at times, while the once reliable Ibrahima Konate has also been wildly inconsistent at centre-half.
As a consequence of all that, opposing teams are readily exploiting the massive gap between Salah and whoever Slot chooses to play behind him. If Salah isn’t bringing goals or assists, or putting in any work in defence, Liverpool might as well be playing with 10 men. It’s simply not sustainable.
The tragic death of Diogo Jota has clearly weighed heavily on Salah, too. “Until yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break,” he wrote on Instagram after Jota and his brother Andre Silva were killed in a car crash on July 3. “Team-mates come and go but not like this. It’s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won’t be there when we go back.”
Indeed, Salah was unable to hold back tears when Jota’s chant rang out across the Kop after Liverpool’s 4-2 win over Bournemouth on the opening day of the new season. “It was quite tricky for me because I didn’t prepare myself for that,” he later explained in an interview with Men in Blazers. “Usually, I clap for the fans after the game to tell them, like, thank you for coming for the game. But then once I stood in front of the Kop, they were singing for Diogo. Then my emotions came and in my mind (I was thinking about him). Then you just (try) to handle it. But then you can see, many people in a Kop also are like showing their emotions or what they feel. So then you start to break down a little bit.”
Compassion is needed when analysing Salah’s sudden downturn. The effects of grief can be crippling, and there is no timeframe for when they get any easier to cope with. As Van Dijk alluded to after Liverpool’s recent defeat to Chelsea, the loss of Jota is hanging over every game they play.
“It was always going to be a tough season,” the Liverpool captain told Viaplay. “Nobody said that it was going to be plain sailing whatsoever. It was always going to be ups and downs for multiple reasons that we shouldn’t forget, and all we have to do is stick together.”
Salah might be one of the players who has been hit hardest. If so, that is a completely valid excuse for not reaching the incredibly high standards he has set for himself over the last nine years.
Alternatives emerging
Under the circumstances, Slot has done a fine job keeping motivational levels up across the squad. But after a much-needed return to winning ways, he must put any sentiment towards Salah aside to ensure that Liverpool whip up some momentum again.
After a record-breaking £446m ($595m) summer spend, the Reds are going through a period of change. Maintaining the cohesion of last season was always going to be a tough task after the additions of Wirtz, Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez and Frimpong. It will take time for Slot to settle on his new best XI, but right now, it should not include Salah.
Wirtz, who has had the most trouble settling in, offered far more than Salah in attack and defence in the first half against Eintracht. He was even more effective after the break after being moved into a central role, and notched his first two assists for Liverpool, but he is now a viable option for Slot on that right flank, especially if he sticks with the new formation.
There’s a good chance he won’t, though, because the front two experiment with Ektike and Isak didn’t quite come off. The two frontmen were able to swap sides at will to upset the Eintracht defence, but there was no instant chemistry, and Isak is obviously still not 100% match fit after his deadline-day transfer from Newcastle.
However, that doesn’t mean Salah will definitely be reinstated, because Slot brought Federico Chiesa off the bench first in Frankfurt. The Italian’s only start of the campaign so far came in the Carabao Cup against Southampton, but he’s still racked up five goal involvements, and has brought real energy and aggression to the Liverpool frontline when called upon.
It should be a toss-up between Chiesa and Wirtz for the spot on the right when the Reds travel to Brentford on Saturday. That game has the potential to be another banana skin, given the Bees handily beat Manchester United at the Gtech Community Stadium last month, and starting a confidence-stricken Salah could play into the hands of Keith Andrews’ team.
New era dawning
A run of games on the bench could be exactly what Salah needs. He’d have to start making the most of every minute he gets, which might help restore the hunger and drive that have kept him at the top level for so long. He may look like a spent force at the moment, having only scored five goals in his last 23 appearances dating back to March, but this is not the first time that the Egypt international has come under fire in a Liverpool shirt. He also endured lean spells towards the end of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, only to bounce back in stunning fashion on both occasions.
“Do not write off Salah too soon because he has a habit of making criticism look silly,” former Reds defender Jamie Carragher reminded the world in his latest column for The Telegraph. But Carragher did also warn that Liverpool must start getting used to life without Salah, particularly as he gears up for international duty at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, which is to be played in Morocco between December 21 and January 18.
“When all sides committed to that contract, there must have been an understanding that the days when Salah is a guaranteed starter in every game would come to an end over the course of the next two years,” Carragher added. “Sooner or later, Liverpool must move beyond Salah and enter the era of Isak and Wirtz.”
It’s up to Salah to delay that succession plan and make himself indispensable again, while Slot has a responsibility to challenge his under-performing talisman. If he reverts to type, there will be more suffering ahead for Liverpool.