Mohamed Salah may have to switch up his role for shining teammate

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Mohamed Salah may have to switch up his role at Liverpool. That’s in order to accommodate a shining teammate who can’t stop scoring.

For the last three years, Mohamed Salah has the role of primary goalscorer at Liverpool. It’s one he’s excelled at, too.

Salah’s debut season saw him score 44 goals – including a 38-game Premier League record of 32. He followed that up with a second Golden Boot and scoring 27 in all competitions.

Season three featured 19 Premier League goals, 23 in all competitions.

More than just goals, though, Salah’s role has helped Liverpool to their most successful period since the 1980s. That £34m was a complete bargain, then.

And yet, in his fourth season at the club and despite such incredible success, Salah may have to change his role.

Shining brightly

No one saw Diogo Jota being this good. He’s come in and scored nine goals already, including eight in his last eight games.

Liverpool have rode that wave in an injury crisis, picking up good results on the back of Jota’s form. The most recent being a point at Brighton after his excellent opener.

And they may have to continue in that vein. After all, Liverpool can’t rely on last season’s plan as injuries robbed them of it. Instead, Jurgen Klopp has to go with what’s working.

If Liverpool want the title again, they can’t afford to wait around to try new things, either. Jota is scoring, thus Jota is the main goalscorer.

That will likely come at the expense of Salah’s goals, too. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Egyptian is showing a fantastic ability to create this season and he should really change his role.

Salah is averaging 2.4 key passes (chances created) per game in the Premier League. That’s by far the best at Liverpool – Sadio Mane is next-highest with 1.7.

In fact, that’s good enough for top 10 in the Premier League. Perhaps that doesn’t sound extraordinary but Salah also has eight goal – he’s creating chances galore while still being the main goalscorer.

No one else creating that many chances is also the main goalscorer. Only Bruno Fernandes comes close to eight goals, in fact, (6) – everyone else has half Salah’s tally at most.

Tellingly, Saturday was Salah’s first assist of the season. It suggests that while he’s creating chances, his role as primary goalscorer means the team isn’t set up the same for others to score goals.

But if Liverpool focused on channelling their efforts through the in-form Jota, Salah’s incredible creativity could become a devastating weapon.