Mo Salah 2025/26 Season
- Thread starter Dreambeliever
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They've both been shit, but one might become not shit and represents an investment in the future, the other is not part of any plans beyond this season. So of course we might humour isak more than Salah. If anyone could be aggrieved about isak, it should be tekkers, not Salah.
One was the Premier League Golden Boot, Premier League Top Assist provider, Player of the Year, and Premoer League Champion for the season that ended just seven months ago, and has a contract until the end of next season.
The other has been on hunger strike for three months.
I don’t think Slot has done a lot wrong here. He’s been pretty classy bar thay one comment about wondering if the player will admit he made a mistake. Salah attacked him. This was a very mild response.
It’s time to accept he doesn’t have Klopp’s man management skills and yes it’s showing. Is it a dealbreaker? We will see.
It’s time to accept he doesn’t have Klopp’s man management skills and yes it’s showing. Is it a dealbreaker? We will see.
They wanted him to have some value this summer, of that Ive no doubt. Or maybe even this January, he starts the season flying normally.
They didn't plan on his being shit, or us being this shit
Ok? So what. One might be the future,one is the past.
Man management is the difference between finding 5th with a shit, half dead squad, and struggling in 10th after spending half a billion.
But that's just a silly point. Were any of them hands down the best player in the league and arguably the world last season in terms of impact?
You make it sound like Salah is 39.
And yet here he is, barely making an impact on games and barely defending in a game.
He's fucked off everything isn't tailored to him any more and his performances match that.
Don't get me wrong, there MANY players who deserved to be dropped this season, but few others who are as old as him and no others leaving for 2 months of the season.
He's been a petulant child, and I genuinely couldn't care about what he did last season. That's for the history books.
Was that not Clough at Leeds as he said they were cheaters? Before he got sacked for terrible man management
True, you always respect your past and what it's done for you.
Side note, but I actually think Salah really misses Trents impact, we never really replaced that, and it was very important for Salah. Once Trent was going, we needed to find a way to replace what he did, creatively, and we didn't.
He probably misses people saying "Trent can't defend" to hide the fact that he didn't defend.
I do agree on the first sentence, but I also think a lot of this is tactics and personnel. One big thing that has buggered our RW is that we've played about 7 players at RB as everyone keeps getting injured.
Add to this a completely uninspiring approach when we have the ball, there is nothing being done to get the best out of a player we know is lethal inside the box. He is being limited and isolated on the wing, or having more and more of his cut-inside-and-shoots from outside the box. He needs to be in a system where he's in the box receiving balls when he's making an outside-in run into the box.
I don't like how he's reacted. But I think a lot of his role is down to the 'head coach' and given he has played everyone else in other positions, I am amazed we haven't see Mo tried on the LW, at CF or even as AM.
It will ultimately boil down to the outcome though, the club should be handling it overall, Slot's and Salah's personal feelings towards how each have professionally acted shouldn't come into it. We've been here with Ged and Rafa where they fell out with top players who you then knew were out the door and it became their undoing. We know Slot has a stubborn nature, so letting him lead it is where you get comments like this and it just feeds the fall out.
Slot doesn't know how to say the right things to soften the situation, he only knows how to let his own professional, detached conclusion spill over.
We've lost the firepower and endless energy from both full backs. Robbo was so fit that he could cover forward and back endlessly. He also had a very very good connection and understanding with Gini & Mane who were hit go-to players on the left.
We used to have the Trent-Hendo-Salah triangle on the right. For much of last season Szobo favoured the right side, the style of play from the full back was completely different. Once we started this woke inverting nonsense it really damaged the style of play and effectiveness of both wide forwards.
I think Mo would still be lethal if he was in a tactic where we were overloading his side with supporting players e.g. Bradders overlapping, Szobo around him. Instead our go-to tactic has the left overloaded (with Gakpo who can't beat a man and who doesn't pass to his full back) and Mo isolated on the right.
I think you are making too little of that outburst calling it 'a moment of indiscipline'. He didn't throw a paddy walking off the pitch, that would be a moment of indiscipline, he calculatedly crucified the club & the manager all whilst egotistically lauding himself. If Slot 'hit back' as you call it (and it was a query even if a pointed one) then I think he can be forgiven in comparison to the comments Salah made.
Don't be so ridiculous. Whatever went on at Newcastle (and if I remember correctly they put him to train on his own then stopped him coming altogether - he just refused to return when invited back) has nothing (bar affecting his fitness) to do with who should be selected now he's at LFC.
If you think the Salah of last season is the Salah we are watching (and is) now your head needs a wobble !
I would say the tactics and changing personal are the biggest reason but he’s still still among the biggest impacters even having missed 3 of the last 4 games.
We should never have made such sweeping changes to effectively kill Salahs outrageous contributions.
What he did was wrong on every level however this narrative he’s done and akin to fucking John Barnes is bananas.
Is that how come we won the PL last season then? Terrible man management?
The team were flying last season, a lot of which had to do with Salah. But clearly towards the end of the season all the signs were there that a few players had hit a wall and that age was catching up with them : Robbo & Salah exceptionally. Then there was the Jota tragedy and a few players were sold (Diaz, Nunez, TAA, Doak, Elliott, Kelleher, Phillips, Quansah & Tsimikas). All but Diaz I agreed with (though npt Quansah in retrospect but TBF I expected a replacement) and even then the fee was a major persuasion.
So TBH It's not that big of a surprise that we've struggled to integrate new players whilst near on half the squad has changed. I had hoped (even expected) better but we didn't expect Salah's form to drop off a cliff or for the new players in general to struggle so much (they are all excellent players so it's not about the quality).
Agreed however if you change the team that results in a monumentally negative way in terms of outcome and the output of the teams best producer and then scapegoat him when others have been as bad or worse and then manage it terribly then it’s not as cut and dry imo.
Hang on ... what ?! That is exactly as he's always played! The issue is he's lost his pace, control and mostly can't go past even a solitary FB any more, never mind when he's being doubled up on. If he can't get into the box any more that's on him because no it's not that he doesn't have support (Szobo, Frimpong, Bradley ... even Gomez was playing too high up the pitch, as I moaned about at the time).
We've tried him centre and it just didn't work for whatever reason. I always thought he'd make a great 10 - but he didn't.
Not quite. He would always start wide, but if you were to look at his goal map they come inside the box. I imagine if you looked at his shot map this season, they are outside of the box. It only needs to be a 3-4 yard difference and there is an extra line of players in the way.
Doing some research on the fly. Mo's goals last season:
I can't find a shot map but i'm sure its out there - I would be there is a lot less on that line between penalty spot and RH post and more towards the outside of the box.
Not saying its a huge shift, but its enough to see a big drop off.
If you truly believe he is playing the same as he always has, and that the tactics around him haven't changed - I admire the lack of detail you watch for in a football game.
Ok 2 mins later I found these.
Touches last season to now:
This season's shot map:
As suggested - there are more which are in much lower xG zones and outside of the box too.
My overall point being - we aren't playing in a way that is setting him (or frankly any one of our players) for success.
Touches last season to now:
This season's shot map:
As suggested - there are more which are in much lower xG zones and outside of the box too.
My overall point being - we aren't playing in a way that is setting him (or frankly any one of our players) for success.
Ok 2 mins later I found these.
Touches last season to now:
This season's shot map:
As suggested - there are more which are in much lower xG zones and outside of the box too.
My overall point being - we aren't playing in a way that is setting him (or frankly any one of our players) for success.
You've misinterpreted what I said. I said the issue isn't so much those around him - it's him. We've all seen it. He can hardly beat a man any more. He certainly can't for pace and he hardly dribbles any more (look at his dribbling stats).Not quite. He would always start wide, but if you were to look at his goal map they come inside the box. I imagine if you looked at his shot map this season, they are outside of the box. It only needs to be a 3-4 yard difference and there is an extra line of players in the way.
Doing some research on the fly. Mo's goals last season:
I can't find a shot map but i'm sure its out there - I would be there is a lot less on that line between penalty spot and RH post and more towards the outside of the box.
Not saying its a huge shift, but its enough to see a big drop off.
If you truly believe he is playing the same as he always has, and that the tactics around him haven't changed - I admire the lack of detail you watch for in a football game.
All those charts show, that you put up above, is what we all know - that he's shooting from outside, in much lower xG positions, simply because he's not capable of consistently beating players, to enable him to get inside, any more. That's not on his 'support' or our style of play.
Players such as Szobo, Wirtz even Macca and Bradley, can and do find him easily. It's a misnomer to say he's 'isolated'.
I agree that he has lost some of his pace & skill. But if that is obvious to us, why isn't our 'head coach' adapting a system to play to his strengths? I think we're isolating him even more than we did when he was at his peak.
Our 'head coach' is a dud, and he's got zero idea how to get a competent attacking performance out of a team including the likes of fucking Isak, Salah, Wirtz, Szobo, Ekitike etc.
We easily have the best attacking roster in the league. And we're awful.
We don’t have the best attacking roster in the league though.
Isak, Mo, Gakpo and Ekitike all want to play in the same areas of the pitch. To fit them in together, they need to compromise their game in some way. And this reduces their effectiveness. That’s been the main issue the whole season
