Mohamed Salah had the fewest touches of any outfield starter for Liverpool or Fulham, with his influence curtailed in the 3-2 defeat at Craven Cottage.
Salah played the full 90 minutes on Sunday and yet finished with the fewest touches of any outfield player to play 90 minutes, ending his day with 50.
As is the No. 11’s calibre, we know he does not always need a copious amount of touches to make something happen but he, again, proved non-existent against Fulham.
As per FotMob, Salah finished his afternoon with one shot off target – an uncharacteristic miss from close range – and zero successful dribbles from two attempted (0/2).
He was dispossessed twice and lost seven of the eight duels he contested, winning zero of his five ground duels (0/5, 0%) and one in the air (1/3, 33%).
He did make the joint-most chances created (two), but he remains goalless for the fourth consecutive game in all competitions, his longest dry run since February 2023.
“We have to bring him as much as we can into those positions,” Arne Slot assessed after the defeat. “He had a big chance, don’t know who crossed it but he had [it on] his right foot.
“But Mo will show up again, I don’t worry about that at all.”
Liverpool’s issue, however, is ‘bringing him’ into the positions the Liverpool boss speaks of, especially without Trent Alexander-Arnold or a specialist right-back in the side.
The missing right-back link
As we can see from Opta‘s pass map against Fulham, Salah is isolated in attack on the right – though he is not the only one as the Reds struggled to progress up the pitch.
Salah’s strongest connection was with Ryan Gravenberch (five passes), then Dominik Szoboszlai (four), Curtis Jones (three) and finally Ibrahima Konate (one).
Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota did not fare much better, and this is symptomatic of Liverpool lacking the ability to replicate Alexander-Arnold’s creativity elsewhere on the pitch.
It stunted the Reds and only when Harvey Elliott and Luis Diaz arrived on the scene in the second half did that look like changing, with both making brave decisions in possession.
Conor Bradley‘s return from injury can aid Salah’s return to form, if the Norther Irishman’s cameo off the bench is anything to go by having offered the needed thrust forward.
But Salah’s recent lack of goals is not the big issue, it’s Liverpool’s reliance on him and their inability to create when it is not coming from right-back – a big conundrum considering who is out of contract…
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