Arne Slot confirmed Mohamed Salah began on the bench for Liverpool\u2019s 1\u20131 draw with Sunderland as part of a plan to bolster the team defensively. It was the second match in succession Salah did not start and followed growing fan frustration about the 33-year-old\u2019s limited defensive contribution during a run of poor results.<\/p>\n
Slot said he adjusted his setup from the start. \u201cIn the first half, we played with [Dominik] Szoboszlai off the right to be defensively strong enough not to concede enough as we did in the last few weeks,\u201d Slot reflected.<\/p>\n
The manager was asked whether Salah\u2019s impending departure to the Africa Cup of Nations \u2014 clubs must release players no later than Dec. 15 \u2014 affected selection, or whether he will continue to pick the best team for each opponent. \u201cThat\u2019s always the situation,\u201d Slot stressed. \u201cIt has nothing to do with Mo or anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salah was introduced at halftime in place of Cody Gakpo. Slot analysed that switch and explained his concerns about Gakpo\u2019s first-half influence. \u201cIn my opinion, Cody struggled to dominate the one-v-ones,\u201d Slot explained. \u201cIf you want to have any chance against … like I said, they were pressing high but also in multiple situations they were in a low block, [so] the way to score is quite simple: you need a moment of magic from a player or you need a set-piece to score.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt in the first half Cody struggled to find that moment because it was hard for him to dominate the one-v-one or get crosses in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI changed it to Mo on the right side and then played with Florian Wirtz off the left. Like I said, we hardly conceded, but it was throughout the whole game difficult to create that moment of magic. From the set-pieces we had, we were once close\u2014I think it was Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] in the first half who hit the post from a set-piece\u2014but we had enough, especially in the end of the second half, but didn\u2019t score.\u201d<\/p>\n
The draw leaves Liverpool eighth in the Premier League standings, 11 points behind leaders Arsenal. Liverpool now travel to Elland Road on Saturday to face Leeds United, who had beaten Chelsea 3\u20131 in midweek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Salah was benched to improve Liverpool’s defensive balance during the 1\u20131 Sunderland draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1211,299,872],"class_list":["post-4883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-arne-slot","tag-cody-gakpo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}