We all know Salah should have at least 10 additional assists here
Hehe.. and that is why I personally don't like following football with stats. A lot of Salah fans will always revert back to his goals + assists statistics to defend him. I on the other hand, look more at the general play and attitude. In terms of all round play... defensively closing down, being a general menace and offensively scoring clutch winning goals, I would argue Nunez has been better than Salah this year - but statistics will show Salah has a better G+A contribution than Nunez.
The problem I have with Salah is simple. He does not see himself as a system player. anymore What I mean by that is as follows:
In the beginning of Klopp's journey, Salah, Firmino & Mane formed the attacking system.. Gegenpressing monsters. They all worked in a system. This is why without Firmino and Salah, we could overcome Barcelona - the system was the KEY player. Ever since the 2020-21 season, for reasons that probably made more sense back then, we moved away from system to a more talent-oriented team. Therefore the reliance on Thiago, Diaz, Mane, Nunez, Salah, Jota & more recently Trent to individually win games with their exceptional talent. There is no problem with that - UNTIL the individuals entrusted cannot deliver. This is what I assume happened this season. With mid-season injuries, we reverted to the "system" with younger players like Clark, Danns, Quansah, Bradley, McConnell providing great support to the "system" recruits like Macca and Endo. As soon as the "talent" returned we were unable to win anymore. This is my opinion.
The reason why I don't want Salah (and also Trent) to get new contracts is because I want them to be systems players they were when Klopp introduced them. I just don't see them being that anymore. Maybe, they will both prove me wrong and completely trust the Slot experiment.