Arne Slot Reveals Why Star Strikers Alexander Isak and Mohamed Salah Are Struggling to Find Their Form
Liverpool boss Arne Slot has dismissed worries regarding Alexander Isak and Mohamed Salah's performances this campaign, stating both stars are merely adapting to a fresh tactical approach.
The Merseyside club's new £125 million ($168.1 million) forward has found the net only once across his opening five outings for Liverpool, with the team now suffering consecutive defeats and facing their first potential three-game losing streak since early 2023.
Salah, on the other hand, has registered three goals and three assists from nine appearances in all competitions but is generally considered to be performing significantly below his previous season's standards, when he accumulated 29 goals and 18 assists in Premier League action alone.
The pair aren't the only ones experiencing difficulties, as Liverpool collectively have fallen short of expectations despite leading the Premier League table, with individual performance questions dominating Slot's media briefing before Saturday's visit to Chelsea.
Isak 'Still Adapting' to New Environment
Slot emphasized that Isak's playing time statistics are deceptive at this stage of the season. Following his shortened pre-season preparation, the Swedish striker has only made three starts and hasn't yet played a complete 90-minute match.
"I mentioned to him when he began that the challenging aspect will be you'll get your opportunities, but if you combine the minutes, [he] likely only had two or three full games," Slot clarified. "That's what we inherited from his situation of not being with Newcastle's squad and we understood this beforehand, so it's not making excuses.
"He's already found the scoresheet, he's becoming increasingly fit, but the key factor is his adaptation to his teammates and their adjustment to him. The more they play as a unit, the better things will function. He made an excellent counter run in the [Crystal] Palace match, where ultimately the midfielder missed it and had already passed the ball right. If he had spotted it, he would have been through on goal. These are developments you achieve when playing more as a team.
"Playing more cohesively has been more challenging than last campaign due to Alexander Isak, due to [Alexis] Mac Allister, due to Conor Bradley, with Dominik Szoboszlai featuring at eight, at 10, at right-back for the reasons I mentioned. However, we are, in my view, overly concentrated on this season, but the latter portion of last season shared many similarities with this season's beginning—except that [in] the second half of last season we converted seven set-pieces, which resulted in numerous victories, and this season we've allowed four, I believe."
'Opposition Approaching Salah Differently'
Regarding Salah, Slot contended his decline in output actually commenced last season, when teams were compelled to modify their tactical approach after being dismantled by the Egyptian during the campaign's opening period.
"I observe the same pattern as the second half of last season, where he netted 12 goals, five from spot-kicks [and] one from a dead-ball situation, so six goals from open play," Slot observed.
"He's part of a squad that encounters different opposition compared to last season's first half. To provide perhaps more clarity on this, if you contrast how we secured the away victory against Man Utd, where they attempted to build from the back and we dispossessed them three times, to how United approached the Anfield fixture, where [André] Onana consistently played direct passes, then that explains why it's more challenging for us to score from open play.
"Mo plays a role in this, you could already notice this in last season's second half and this season's opening phase. But now you're concentrating on Mo, next time you'll focus on Florian [Wirtz] then you'll examine Cody [Gakpo]... what I'm attempting to convey is we don't convert as many open-play opportunities as we did in last season's first half. This is something we're working intensively on.
"The more we compete together in the new formation, the better that will develop, but we still face some difficulty finding sufficient goals from open play in last season's second half and this season's opening period."
'Ibrahima Konaté Receiving Unjust Criticism'
One of the primary focuses of Liverpool supporters' disappointment this season has been central defender Ibrahima Konaté, who ranks among those players to have underperformed. What distinguishes the Frenchman from others is his contract situation, entering his final year while having rejected Liverpool's extension proposals to this point.
Slot was eager to remind fans that Konaté, a target for Real Madrid, isn't the sole player to have committed errors during this season.
"What I believe is if you're losing a football match, as we experienced against Galatasaray and against Palace, then it doesn't assist if you surrender possession several times carelessly," the Reds manager concluded. "He has been among them, certainly not the only one because against Galatasaray I think besides the penalty they generated three or four chances and all three or four came from us losing a straightforward ball without any pressure, which occurred to him once in the Crystal Palace game and once against Galatasaray.
"If you subsequently lose a football match, there's excessive attention on that moment and then suddenly [the] 90 minutes are perceived as extremely poor, which isn't how I evaluate a game. Particularly not afterward when I have time to analyze, to review it once more, and assess what we executed well and what we did poorly.
"In the previous two matches, it has been evident and obvious we've committed several mistakes, not only him but also others, that we're unaccustomed to. If you do things people aren't familiar with and you lose a football match then typically he, others and the manager receive criticism."