Richard Hughes and Arne Slot hung £400k p/w Mo Salah out to dry

The writing was on the wall - in many ways - for Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool career a little more than a year ago.

That was even before his record-breaking £400k+ per week contract was signed. Although the 33-year-old was well on his way towards perhaps the best-ever individual season in Premier League history the worrying signs were already there.

Salah had scant involvement in two crucial matches across that period - against Paris Saint-Germain away in the Champions League and against Newcastle in the EFL Cup final.

Far from being a central attacking figure Salah was quite literally on the periphery - isolated on the right wing and having very few impactful touches.

It was clear that Salah would no longer get from his opponents the privilege of conjuring goals and chances readily from his right-wing station.

Nuno Mendes marked him aggressively and Newcastle succeeded where many other opponents have since followed - in cutting Salah out of the game.

In Arne Slot’s orthodox 4-2-3-1 set-up Salah was destined to fail from then on - and things were made even worse when Trent Alexander-Arnold was allowed to leave last summer.

Liverpool refusing to play to Salah's strengths

Richard Hughes agreed to give Salah a new contract - extending to 2027 - but no allowances have been made for the player Salah has become - especially with his supply line cut due to Trent's exit.

With Slot asking him to play like Mo Salah circa 2018 the £40m+ contract was doomed from the start.

Salah sees himself in the same bracket of players as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi - and with good reason too. Up against a rampant Manchester City over the life cycle of his Reds career his record both individually and from a team perspective stacks up.

But Liverpool were unwilling to “indulge” their superstar to the same extent that both Ronaldo and Messi have been in the latter days of their career.

Salah needs to play closer to goal but Slot won't do it

Salah doesn’t have the legs to be a winger these days and Slot has let him down by playing him so far away from the goal.

Slot NEEDS Salah's goals and assists - witness the collective drop-off between this season and last - but has been unable or unwilling to put him in a position to get them.

There was a brief glimmer in the Champions League against Galatasaray last week when Salah's heatmaps showed him much closer to the danger zone.

Egypt have long since learned how to get the best out of him - and that means getting him much closer to the arc around the opposition box.

For his national team he often plays in a front-two partnership - beside a player like Omar Marmoush.

The Pharaohs are content to let a wing-back come up on the outside channel to provide the width - and frustratingly Liverpool have the right player to do this in Jeremie Frimpong.

But no alternative has been considered. It's baffling. Why sign a forward on around half-a-million pounds a week and set up in a way that doesn't get the best out of him?

This contract was doomed from the start

Messi has had a new lease of life since finding himself in this position - for both Argentina and Inter Miami. That Salah hasn’t been given the same chance is a failure of imagination from Arne Slot.

The brilliant little Argentine scored 29 goals as Miami won MLS last season and the vast majority were scored within the perimeter of the penalty area.

It might have required a change of formation - think of Ronald Koeman’s 3-5-2 at Barcelona when Messi was excellent - but Slot has stubbornly stuck to his guns.

He’s asked Salah to do a job he’s basically not equipped for. If you think the onus should be on Salah to change well Liverpool knew what they were getting themselves in for with a £400k per week two-year extension.

And yet Salah is STILL Liverpool’s third-highest goalscorer in all competitions this season - behind only Hugo Ekitike and Dominik Szoboszlai. And alongside Florian Wirtz he has made more assists than anyone else in the squad.

But it’s Salah continually singled out for his failures, for his inability to consistently reach his highest levels. When in truth NO-ONE is playing well on a consistent basis - at least not in any kind of coherent manner - other than Szoboszlai.

Liverpool and Arne Slot have got big problems - Mo Salah being chief among them. But for this £400k per week contract Richard Hughes and Slot have hung him out to dry.

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