Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah could do a better job at holding onto the ball during attacks sometimes.
That’s the view of former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher. Speaking to the Across The Park Podcast ahead of Monday’s Merseyside Derby, Carragher gave his take on Salah’s recent lean patch. Despite the Egyptian’s poor form, the Reds legend doesn’t sound too worried.
“He’ll end up with 25, close to 30 [goals]. We judge Salah so highly. Yeah, the team isn’t playing well so Salah is not going to be at his best,” Carragher said. “I’ve never believed Salah is a great player as such, he’s a great goalscorer.
“He’s very direct, everything is about the goal, he runs to the goal, so at times he can have games where – a little bit like Torres – where he can get the ball and he runs into people and loses possession. Sometimes you’re thinking just keep it and run in behind.
“When he’s on song he can do that, but it’s not helped by the team. But I’m not bothered about Salah.”
We know exactly what Carra is referring to here. At times it looks as though Mo is hedging his bets on getting it through a player’s legs on the way to goal. When it works it looks great, when it doesn’t, it’s enormously frustrating.
Salah due a purple patch after difficult season
Although Salah has been poor this season, he’s still be scoring a decent amount of goals. It sounds bizarre that Liverpool could have a player score 30 goals this campaign, but the £34m man genuinely could.
So far, he has 17. It doesn’t feel like it, but there’s pretty much still half a Premier League season to go. It’s more than possible that, with the Champions League factored in, Mo could hit another 13.
In fact, it should even be expected that he will. As Carragher goes on to say, he’s more than due a purple patch. With his recent sticky form continuing for far too long, the pundit is backing Salah to score in Monday’s game.
“Sometimes I think when he has gone that long without a goal he’s obviously going to score soon,” said Carragher.
“If I was Everton I’d be thinking – Salah’s due a goal. That’s the way I’m thinking, he’s gone a few games without a goal so there must be some around the corner.”
We’ve been thinking that for a while, to be fair. Perhaps Mo just needs a good old fashioned bobbler to get him going again. While he’s at it, we wouldn’t mind one for Darwin Nunez or Diogo Jota too. As Liverpool’s main man though, getting Salah back firing will go some way to sorting the problems of this torrid season.