Mohamed Salah’s form both in defence and attack has been causing Liverpool some problems during the early part of the season.
The Egyptian was comfortably the best player in the Premier League last term, scooping a clean sweep of the end of year awards.
However, having signed a new, bumper deal in the spring, Salah has failed to replicate that output during 2025/26.
Not only have the goals and assists dried up for the 33-year-old, he has also begun to cause Liverpool some real issues defensively.
Salah is given license to stay forward by Arne Slot while the Reds are being attacked. The forward does not have to track back and help his full-back out in the manner Cody Gakpo does on the other side, for example.
This hurt Liverpool on Saturday, with Marc Cucurella admitting that Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca had told his team to exploit this potential weakness. As teams grow wiser to Salah’s role, Man United legend Wayne Rooney has offered some advice for how Slot can fix it.
Arne Slot to copy Cristiano Ronaldo move with Mohamed Salah
Although Salah’s current role is adding to Liverpool’s concerns at the moment, most fans would still rather have the Egypt captain in the team.
As he has shown over almost a decade with the Reds, Salah is always good for a goal or a moment of inspiration when Liverpool most need one.
Consequently, Slot rarely takes him off. So, without having to replace him in the team, Rooney has said that the Liverpool head coach can try something Alex Ferguson did with Cristiano Ronaldo at Man United.
“Certainly over the last six months, the Liverpool fans I know in Liverpool were on his back,” the former striker told The Wayne Rooney Podcast.
“Because he was scoring goals and winning you get away with it, but I think the best managers see that and they adjust.”
“I’m not saying you leave him out the team,” Rooney explained. “We had it with Ronaldo at Man United where similarly he wouldn’t track back as much, so Fergie moved him inside. So, you’ve still got that balance in the team, you’ve still got the work getting done but he moved him inside so he’s still on the pitch, because he’s always got a chance of scoring goals and winning games.
“When you get a little bit older as well, I think Slot could have maybe looked at it yesterday [Sunday] and thought ‘you know what, Chelsea are killing us down this side’. Move him inside a little bit, even if you put [Florian] Wirtz out there, then you still have that work ethic behind you but still have that brilliance of Salah to go and score goals. If I was a Liverpool fan that would be a little bit of a concern for me.”
What could Liverpool look like if Slot takes this advice?
While Rooney’s suggestion makes potential sense for Liverpool on paper, it is hard to see exactly how this works in practice.
Essentially, it would mean Wirtz and Salah swapping positions. With players already out of position elsewhere on the pitch, this would feel like more square pegs in round holes.
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 1 |  ArsenalArsenal | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 16 |
| 2 |  LiverpoolLiverpool | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 15 |
| 3 |  TottenhamTottenham | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 14 |
Salah could likely play this position well, however. He is a creative at heart and it would be fascinating to see how he would fare in a different role after all these years.
But while it would perhaps solve some of the problem of Liverpool being overloaded on the right, it would arguably only shift the issue to the central areas.
The Reds are already having problems with winning the midfield battle in matches. Putting Salah centrally would mean being robbed of Wirtz’s significant work rate in helping out the deeper players. Put simply, we just cannot see how this really works.
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