Mo Salah completed just seven passes in the opening 45 minutes against Lille, too often sloppily misjudging the strength and length of his deliveries. His four attempted crosses saw exactly zero reach a teammate as social media muttered about Liverpool attacks habitually breaking down at the feet of the Egyptian.
He also did the square root of bugger all defensively, leaving Conor Bradley to battle against the twin threats of Gabriel Gudmundsson and Remy Cabella, spending almost all of that first 45 minutes waiting five or 10 yards inside the opposition half. We are not privy to whether Arne Slot ever asks him to track back, but any such pleas are clearly falling on deaf ears.
After spending 33 minutes wondering why Salah was starting yet another Liverpool match, with fellow 30-something Virgil van Dijk the only Red to play more football this season, the next minute was spent wondering how one of the world’s greatest modern footballers can look like a rank amateur and a Ballon d’Or contender within the same game. Sometimes within the same minute.
It has always been thus. Curtis Jones has boiled some red p*** by saying that Eden Hazard was a better footballer than Salah, but the addendum of “who would you rather have in your team? They’re going to say Mo because he gets you your goals and assists,” is key. Jones is right; Hazard, whose legacy has been unfairly denigrated by his failure at Real Madrid, was absolutely the more purely talented footballer, but Salah is the man who almost always delivers.
And he delivered here against Lille to end a 440-minute open-play goal drought which had also been dry in terms of assists. As a Lille attack broke down, Jones’ first thought was to look forward, where Salah was waiting near the half-way line to first win a foot race and then finish in the far corner with a deft lift of the ball.
Before half-time he really should have had another. Luis Diaz delivered an arrowed ball from the left-back position and Salah’s first touch was sumptuous before his strength held off Gudmundsson to give himself a shot on goal that crept past the far post.
It was something of a surprise that Salah was not withdrawn at half-time, or after 62, 74 or 85 minutes when other Liverpool players were substituted, but it seems like Slot might have decided that if he only has one year of Salah, then he is going to wring him dry.
Meanwhile, Lille logged a red card and an equaliser before Harvey Elliott’s shot was heavily deflected to restore Liverpool’s lead and ultimately confirm their place as the Champions League league champions with their seventh consecutive win. Brentford manager Thomas Frank called them “the best team in the Premier League and the world” and it’s hard to disagree with the Reds so dominant at home and abroad.
But the truth is that this Liverpool side is stumbling just a little, perhaps inevitably as they try to compete on four fronts. This is not a Liverpool side that blows teams away, though this is a Liverpool side that contains the man who has scored more goals, and claimed more assists, than any other player across europe’s elite leagues.
It’s that record – and the prospect of Liverpool winning at least one of the two major trophies available – that makes Salah the favourite to win the Ballon d’Or (and a year without a major tournament does represent his only real chance); it matters not that for vast swathes of certain games he looks like he has barely been introduced to a football. Because who would you rather have in your team? Mo, because he gets Liverpool their goals and assists.
