He’s doing great in my opinion - despite the lack of as many goals, he’s still scored at a great rate and by being able to still score goals with all that extra attention, it’s freed up space elsewhere. Mane’s really grabbed that opportunity and he’s now playing at such a high level, he’ll also start getting more focus.
Salah will carry on scoring, this handful of games has been a bit of a blip but as long as we carry on scoring it’s fine.
As teams adapt to our style more and more, and shut down the spaces/situations we attack so aggressively, we’ll need to continue responding with more creativity in how we set up.
That’s where I think 2 attack minded number 8s or 1 attack minded 8 and a 10 is key to the whole thing at the moment (everywhere else on the pitch we’re actually golden!) To have that attacking drive from midfield again will again push the opponent’s defensive focus around - all of a sudden you have Salah, Mane, Firmino and 2 other players from deep who can also drive the attack forward. Lallana gave us the perfect example of why it’s an important trait for a team to have last week. We have Ox on his comeback trail (has been a long 12 months...) and Keita to get up to speed. A creative number 10/8 hybrid in the summer would be good (Shaqiri did a good job for us in that role, although hasnt played much at all for some reason) to add to the roster. Should get Coutinho back in. I also like the idea of him coming back home and operating at a world class level in a Red shirt beaming ear to ear. Good example to the rest of the squad, some of whom will surely be considering moving to a Barca/Real Madrid at some point if not already. Winning the CL/PL double would also do it to be fair - playing in the best team/club to be at at the moment and all that.
Agree with all of this. I think we've made a number of tactical decisions this year which are relevant to Salah's performance.
One, as you've noted, is to give Salah more freedom to lead the line, a pre-emptive move to give him more autonomy to move against attacks that are designed to shut him down in his favourite areas of the pitch.
The others are in midfield, where I think we've largely played without a 10 for most of the season, with more sporadic attacking contributions from the Keita, Wijnaldum, Milner and Henderson, whereas last season we had first Coutinho and then Ox providing that extra attacking impetus from midfield. I think that's been due to available personnel on the one hand - Keita is still getting up to speed, Gini has other jobs Klopp wants him to hold down, Milner's never been quite that driving midfield force and Henderson hasn't played in that position regularly for yonks. At the same time, I think we have more consciously tried to control games rather than go hell for leather. That's been a factor in fewer goals conceded because all 3 midfielders have typically done a good shift in defensive responsibilities, which I think has been ultimately to the team's benefit, but perhaps to the detriment of Salah's goalscoring.
But I think there are games (our litany of recent draws for example), where it would have been useful to have someone dedicated to a bit more forward thinking, which would free Salah up a bit more.
I think Klopp realises this, which is why we've seen Lallana's been given a midfield brief recently, with varying success against Burnley and Fulham. I suspect he doesn't trust Shaqiri tactically - unclear exactly why - to perform the same role, because clearly he has something to contribute as a source of creativity and goals.
This will be an interesting space to watch in the off-season and early next season, because we should have (hopefully) a number of players who can perform this function, but who equally may not:
i) Keita - May or may not grow into being a more attacking CM
ii) Ox - Performed this role before, but recovering from long-term injury
iii) Lallana - Performed this role before, but getting older and less dynamic
iv) Shaqiri - Started the season very well, but not trusted in recent games to play in any position.
What's clear is that we could use a guy in midfield who can support the attack better than the midfield has this season. Hopefully a combination of the guys we have can do that job, and if not, we take the necessary steps to address it with a transfer. I don't think it's that big an ask, when you consider that we were looking at Fekir anyway, before his medical. Hopefully that results in Salah and Firmino being a bit harder to stop next season.
