Mohamed Salah wasn’t just the best attacker for Liverpool last term, he was the best attacker in the Premier League on his way to a fourth Golden Boot.
The legendary forward scored 29 goals and assisted on 18 occasions as the Reds claimed the Premier League title in Arne Slot’s debut campaign in charge.
Salah penned a new two-year deal towards the end of last season and, at the time, it was viewed as a sign that the club had a plan in mind for the 33-year-old.
Yet here we are in mid-October, the reigning champions have lost three successive games in the Premier League and trail leaders Arsenal by four points.
Salah’s only open-play goal arrived on the opening day of the season and he’s not found the back of the net since the win over Burnley, midway through September.
Salah isn’t the only attacker struggling this term in red. Since their 3-2 win over Newcastle in the second game of the season, Liverpool haven’t scored more than two in a game. In fact, in five of their last six, they’ve scored just a single goal.
Slot’s side rank fourth for goals scored in the English top-flight, fifth for expected goals (xG) and third for big chances created. While the sample size isn’t the largest, just the eight games played so far, the Premier League champions are on course to finish with an xG haul of just 65 this term.
For context, they finished with an xG total of 83.5 last season despite effectively taking the month of May off having secured the title in April.
The Red revamped their forward line in the summer, selling Harvey Elliott, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez and signing Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike.
The tragic loss of Diogo Jota undoubtedly had an impact on this squad, on and off the pitch.
There were always going to be teething problems as Slot looked to manage the six player turnover in the forward line.
But the Dutch tactician looks bereft of ideas right now. Against Manchester United, the latest loss for the champions, the former Feyenoord boss started the game with Ekitike and Wirtz on the bench.
After 60 minutes, he had both players on the pitch alongside Cody Gakpo, Salah and Isak. It was a front four with Wirtz supporting from a floating role in midfield.
United struggled to deal with the sheer numbers but in truth, it wasn’t pretty from the hosts.
Liverpool looked like a team chasing a game in a knockout tie. There was no clear system. It appeared as though Slot had just chucked as many attackers on as possible and hoped they’d make something happen.
There was a moment just prior to an Ekitike shot when the Frenchman picked the ball up on the left and had Wirtz, Gakpo and Isak within 10 yards of him, all occupying similar spaces and all looking to attack the box.
On the opposite flank, Salah was isolated.
Ekitike fired his effort wide when a pass might’ve been the better option. But what do you expect when you load your team up with so many attackers. They are naturally a little selfish in these situations. It’s what makes them so ruthless.
Dr. Ian Graham, the former Director of Research at Liverpool, discussed this very subject on the High Performance podcast back in May when asked about the decision to sell Philippe Coutinho.
At the time, Liverpool had the 'Fab Four' made up of Coutinho, Sadio Mane, Salah and Roberto Firmino.
"There's a concept of diminishing returns. And so for every extra attacker you put on who wants to take a shot, you take a shot off another attacker. If [Philippe] Coutinho takes three shots a game, Mo [Salah] takes three shots a game, you put them on the pitch together you aren’t going to get six, you’re getting like five or five and a half because they take shots from each other.
“Because our attack was so loaded, there were diminishing returns. It was hard for us, well, I didn’t have to do it thankfully, it was hard for Jurgen [Klopp] to put all four players out on the pitch at the same time.”
Host Jake Humphrey chipped in at this point.
“You see teams struggling to win a game in the 93rd minute and they put two strikers on and they’ve suddenly got seven attacking players on the pitch. The pundits and the commentators go ‘well, they might score now they’ve got seven attackers on, what an attacking team it is’, but of course, it’s not like that is it? It’s not four times more attacking."
Graham’s response?
“Yeah, someone needs to load the bullets for the strikers to fire the gun.”
On a number of occasions this season, Slot has looked to win the game by throwing on attackers. It might actually have a negative impact on the team.
The optics are the Reds are now more of a threat but in reality, the team lacks balance and is exposed in transition - it’s why they’ve lost their last three matches late on.
And it doesn’t necessarily make them more of a threat as a team. There are no patterns of play. There’s no real plan. It just turns into a game of basketball and you have players taking shots when they should be passing.
Why? Because they’re used to being the main goal threats in a team.
Last season, there was a clear hierarchy within the team. Salah was the main man and the primary goal threat. He topped the charts for xG (0.68 per 90) and only Jota (3.8) could better his 3.5 shots per 90.
You then had Diaz, Darwin and Gakpo all averaging 2.6 shots per 90. The former two had an almost identical xG (0.45) while the Dutch international was coming in at 0.33 per 90.
Dominik Szoboszlai, the de facto fourth attacker in the shape, was averaging over two shots and had an impressive 0.26 per 90 xG. There was a balance to this attack. Now there isn’t.
Gakpo leads the way for shots per 90 with 2.9 in the Premier League, closely followed by Ekitike on 2.6. Isak, in his limited time, is averaging 2.1 per 90 and Szoboszlai, who has spent large periods of the season at right-back, is on two.
Liverpool then have Salah (1.9), Wirtz (1.6), Gravenberch (1.5) and Mac Allister (1.4) having a similar number of attempts per 90.
As a result, the forward line in general are less of a threat. Ekitike tops the xG charts for the Reds with 0.43 per 90. Then it’s Gakpo (0.38), Isak (0.34), Salah (0.3), Wirtz (0.18) and Szoboszlai (0.13).
There’s more of a spread with the shots and the players you want taking them aren’t having as many.
Slot wanted to move away from Salah FC and Liverpool now have too many cooks in the kitchen wanting to be the main man. That, coupled with Slot wanting more fluidity from the midfield and therefore allowing Gravenberch to attack more, has meant it’s like the wild west in the final third, with shots galore from the wrong people in the wrong parts of the pitch.
And, just as Graham said on the podcast, we're seeing diminishing returns.
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