Less Is Mo

Soccer is a difficult sport to analyze. Even in today’s data-saturated environment, the numbers can only tell you so much. The story you tell about future seasons often bears a striking similarity to the previous season. That’s because often all you have to go on. But as Liverpool goes on to pursue its first-ever successful defense of the Premier League title, the only certainty is that this is a much different season than the last. Nowhere is this clearer than with Mo Salah.

READ MORE: The Red & The Black by Jack Champagne
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Not Coming Back For Nothing

Mohamed Salah enjoyed the illustrious distinction of being the MVP of one of the strongest Liverpool sides in history. His historic winning of both the Golden Boot and Playmaker of the Season awards seemed even more prestigious in light of its obvious inevitability. Carrying a Premier League-winning team on your back is a remarkable achievement. Doing so at the age of 32, making a mockery of pundits insisting that you’re past your prime, is a feat for the ages. Doing so while shattering both club and league records is something you can only expect from Mo Salah. In light of this, it seemed natural to expect that the strategy for the title defense would revolve around Mo. Increasingly, however, this seems not to be the case.

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My predictions for our activity in the transfer market were based on this assumption. Florian Wirtz, a world-famous playmaker, seemed like a fairly astute choice. But as late as June, I was certain that there was no way in hell we’d get both Wirtz and Alexander Isak in the same season, let alone the same transfer window. As it became clearer and clearer that, at the very least, Liverpool were serious about pursuing both, I began to wonder where Isak would fit in. Assuming that any reconstruction of the offense would be built around Mo Salah, a traditional striker seemed a less salient choice than an Ollie Watkins or, indeed, a Hugo Ekitike.

Ekitike — hailed in some circles as Bobby Firmino 2.0 — seemed to be the absolute perfect choice for the role. He made adding any other offensive option redundant by comparison. But now we have Isak, who, combined with Ekitike, Salah, Gakpo, Chiesa, and the surprising emergence of Rio Ngumoha, is set to be part of a historically powerful front line. Already, questions have been raised about how to manage a squad with two powerful strikers vying for playing time. But there’s also the lingering question of where Mo Salah fits in.

Finding A New Meaning For Mo

There’s never been any doubt that Salah’s starting position is secure. There’s simply no replacing the Egyptian King, in both the tactical and metaphysical sense. But how to structure the starting XI to bring out the best in the talismanic winger is not simple. Salah has been called “quiet” these past few matches. His goal-scoring involvement has slowed significantly from the record-breaking pace he set last season. While on paper Ekitke’s talents are best suited for a partnership with Salah, the two have had some trouble meshing.

The absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose offensive play has been a key element of Salah’s output, has likely affected him as well. We’ve already seen some surprising goal contributions from the likes of Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szobozlai. This suggests that goal-scoring responsibilities are destined to be far more widely distributed this season than the previous. All-in-all, it seems that Salah is set to be less central to the title defense than one would have predicted.

BARAK’S CORNER TAKEN QUICKLY POSTMATCHES

I insist that this is simply a natural progression for the team rather than any regression in Salah. News of the King’s demise has, as they were last season, been greatly exaggerated. Salah was likely going to have trouble adapting this season, regardless of who was bought to fill out the frontline. Losing all of Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, and Diogo Jota in one window is a massive adjustment. And that’s before considering the emotional toll of losing some longtime friends and partners, particularly the tragic death of Jota. The loss of a bevy of senior players who have had the time to adjust to playing together means that a slow start is to be expected.

There’s also the matter of playing Wirtz and Ekitike together. The two combined have a style of play that tends to isolate Salah. This makes him less involved in the attacking third. We’ve already seen firsthand what a difference this makes. In the Champions League tie against Atletico Madrid, with Ekitike and Wirtz starting on the bench, Salah clocked both a goal and an assist within five minutes. Ironically, Salah seemed to work a lot better with Isak, likely due to the latter’s greater playing experience and wider positional variety.

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Most importantly, though, Salah’s incredible performance last season was the result of an unexpected tactical adjustment by Arne Slot. In the absence of a recognized striker with the level of output and consistency that he wanted, he defaulted to Salah. This was a gamble that only paid off because of Salah’s miraculous skill and consistency. Nevertheless, it was never going to be a sustainable method of winning trophies. Indeed, we saw Liverpool’s performance drop off as Salah began to lose steam towards the end of the season. It is a testament to the tactical genius of Arne Slot that he was able to work so effectively with the tools he had on hand.

Now that he is in the process of building a squad in his own image, he has more variety in attacking options. One of the knock-on effects of a more consistent attacking force means that the individual contributions of Salah will be diminished. But this does not mean that Salah has fallen off; it just means that we are now in a position where we don’t have to rely on him so much. This can only be a good thing.

I fully expect Salah to continue breaking records this season and to continue to show his trademark consistency. If indeed he’s slowing down from last season, it’s just a testament to how impossibly excellent he was. If you compare just about any Salah performance to last season, he’ll probably come up short. However, that doesn’t diminish how good he was in previous seasons. The fact that we don’t need Salah to reach that level every season is a sign of growth and evolution. That is a good omen for our title chances.