Arne Slot sends clear message to Mohamed Salah and Liverpool forwards - 'this has happened before'

Salah and Slot

Arne Slot is convinced Mohamed Salah will rediscover his goalscoring touch - and believes the Egyptian isn't the only Liverpool forward to have lost his potency in front of goal.

Salah has now gone nine Premier League games without a goal having been substituted for the closing stages of the Reds' dramatic 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest last weekend.

The 33-year-old has nevertheless contributed four assists in his last six top-flight outings, and has also scored in the Champions League win over Qarabag and, more recently, the FA Cuptriumph over Brighton.

Salah is expected to start Saturday's Premier League visit of West Ham United as he aims for his first strike in the competition since late November.

And Slot said on Friday: "We are used to Mo scoring a lot of goals and at this moment in time that is maybe the biggest difference in his performance and game time.

"But we also know this has happened before, I don’t know if it happened nine games in a row but I've had these questions earlier if he didn’t score for three or five but I know in the end he always starts scoring again.

“That is the challenge he has and we have now to make sure he starts scoring again. He is not our only attacker at this moment in time that doesn’t score as much as we are used to.

“He set his own standards and those are so, so, so high and the moment he doesn’t score for a few games people are immediately surprised - that is the biggest compliment he can get."

Despite being Liverpool's top scorer this season with 15 goals, Hugo Ekitike hasn't notched in his last four appearances while Cody Gakpo has netted only twice since the 2-0 Premier League win at West Ham back in November.

Slot added

“The focus is totally on him (Salah) because of everything he did for the club but Hugo and Cody haven’t scored that many goals recently as well,"

"It is a team thing which we have to improve.

"The good thing is we keep clean sheets so they don’t need to score as many, although against Qarabag we scored six and scored four against Newcastle."

Of Salah's recent record, Slot added: "With data you can use it to your advantage or disadvantage, but not to use the FA Cup game - if we play a Premier League side – you could argue if that is fair.

"But that's the way it works: if we want to highlight something really positive we try to forget one or two games and if we want to highlight something negative we can try to forget one or two games as well.

"Three games ago he had an assist and a goal against a very good Premier League team Brighton so that is the reality and then you can change data and say he did not score in nine Premier League games.

"That is the standard he sets for himself and that is why people are surprised when things like that happen."

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