Michael Owen has called out Mo Salah for not passing enough in the final third during Liverpool’s recent barren Premier League run.
Liverpool haven’t won in four and have scored just once in that time, which came on Boxing Day against West Brom.
Salah has been no worse than his team-mates, with Roberto Firmino the biggest culprit in our opinion, but Owen has sent for the Egyptian in his analysis of our struggles.
“There is a lot of selfishness creeping in, I’ve seen that again,” former Liverpool striker Owen told Premier League Productions.
“Mo Salah is not passing enough of the ball again. He’s never passed it much, but there are extremes. The last sort of few games I’m thinking ‘come on’.”
In some respects, Owen is right. Salah hasn’t linked up well with Bobby and Sadio Mane, but they haven’t linked up well with him either.
All three of them need to start using the space they get in the final third far, far better – starting on Thursday v Burnley.
We’d suggest the defence and midfield are actually doing their job – but that our magic in the final third has temporarily vanished.
And the longer we go without scoring in games, the less ideas we come up with about how to do so – and the more anxiety creeps into our style.