Will Arne Slot drop Mohamed Salah after Chelsea star reveals damning Maresca plan?
Arne Slot has plenty to consider during the international break after Chelsea condemned his Liverpool side to three consecutive defeats on Saturday, and a revelation from Marc Cucurella suggests a big change could be in the offing.
Estevao’s stoppage-time goal secured all three points for Chelsea, who fully deserved their victory having taken the lead through a stunning Moises Caicedo strike before Cody Gakpo levelled for the visitors.
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After Gakpo’s equaliser, and with both Benoit Badiashile and Josh Acheampong hobbling off for Chelsea to make it six senior centre-backs out through injury, Gary Neville insisted he could “only see one winner”. And yet, it was Enzo Maresca’s side who continued to push before getting their reward.
“A lot has been made of Liverpool’s defensive work and rightly so, but that’s not why they’ve lost this game,” Neville said on his podcast.”They’ve lost this game because in the last 15-20 minutes, their creative players, their players in the final half of the pitch, the midfield players and the forwards were absolutely useless.”
None more so than Mohamed Salah, whose downturn this season – which has seen him score three and assist three in ten games – will be a real concern for Slot, particularly if, as highlighted by Cucurella after the game, he’s being targeted as a weakness.
“I think we deserve it,” Cucurella told Sky Sports. “We started the game very well and then the second half we started not in the right way again – we need to improve these things. But in general I think we deserve this win…
“We know that Salah is always ready for the counter-attack so we practiced that and the manager said that the space might be there [on the right side of Liverpool].
“We saw that it was the last minute but we kept attacking. I tried to give my last effort and Enzo gave me the ball and I crossed for Estevao.”
Conor Bradley was readily exposed by Alejandro Garnacho without the support of Salah on Liverpool’s right flank and was hooked at half-time on a yellow card as he struggled to cope with the Argentinian alone. And following the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Slot is yet to land on his preferred replacement.
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Jeremie Frimpong was signed in the summer, but as feared following his use as a right wing-back at Bayer Leverkusen, looks like more of a winger. Bradley – as was the case against Chelsea – looks as though he could get sent off in each and every game he plays. And Dominik Szoboszlai is not a right-back.
“It’s a clear problem Liverpool have got in the right back area,” Wayne Rooney said on Match of the Day. “Conor Bradley has come off twice at half-time in the last two league games.
“They’ve tried Dominik Szoboszlai but it hasn’t really worked for him. Jeremie Frimpong was on the bench today but didn’t get on so they’ve tried three right-backs in seven league games.
“Chelsea have seen that and exploited it. The Liverpool back-four were all over the place at times, there were warning signs early on.
“Bradley got a yellow card and I’m sure that was a big factor in him getting subbed off at half-time. It was a big problem for Liverpool today as it has been all season.”
And given Maresca’s clear plan to target that side because of the lack of protection and help whichever Liverpool right-back is given, you’ve got to wonder whether the best and easiest solution for Arne Slot would be to drop Salah, the major cause of that problem, given he’s now not providing the goals and assists necessary to nullify it.
