Champions League: Arne Slot praises Mohamed Salah return on important night for both
Arne Slot has good memories in Marseille. He was here in 2022 when his Feyenoord team secured a place in the Europa Conference League final.
He was asked about those memories on the eve of this week’s match at the Stade Velodrome. He was also asked in a strange and rude way about Xabi Alonso’s links to the Liverpool job.
Any noise about the Liverpool boss’s future has been silenced by his brand’s performances away from home in Europe, which have added Marseille to Eintracht Frankfurt and Inter Milan as the teams they have beaten away this season.
Their 13-match unbeaten run in all competitions (W7 D6) may have been largely muted, but it is the longest ongoing winning streak of any team in Europe’s top five leagues. For this, the loan must be paid in itself. Liverpool last lost a match in November.
This victory, which was very important for the slot, was Mohamed Salah’s first in a match for Liverpool since November 4, when they defeated Real Madrid in the Champions League. After Salah’s interview at Leeds, a line now appears to have been clearly drawn and both player and manager can move on for the development of the football club.
The truth is that they both need each other. Before the match, Slot told TNT Sports: “When I wasn’t playing with him, I was trying something different. We missed goals in terms of possession. If there is a player in the history of Liverpool who can score goals, it is Mo Salah.”
It was a night when Salah really should have added to his club record 46 Champions League goals for Liverpool with a shot from behind in the second half, but didn’t; but the assurance that Liverpool play in a 4-2-2-2 setup will please Slot and could give him insight for the coming weeks.
“That says a lot about what a great professional he is [Salah] “The slot is that he was able to be out of action for over a month with a different team and after a day’s training he was fit enough to play 90 minutes for us,” he said. “He came very close to scoring a goal. “Usually it would be the goal he scored, but it didn’t hurt us because we scored three goals.”
