How Liverpool Have Reinvented Mo Salah To Win The Premier League
Mo Salah departed Liverpool for the African Cup of Nations, signing off with goals and assists against Newcastle United. But with his club finally sitting top of the Premier League table and showing no signs of slowing down, just how much will his departure scupper their title hopes?
Transcript
00:00 So just one quick moment of fuss please for the season Mo Salah is actually having here.
00:06 He has scored 14 goals in the Premier League this season and laid on 8 assists for his
00:11 teammates. Combined that is 22 goals he has been involved in and Liverpool have scored
00:16 43 in the league this season. If it's still too early in the year for you to math, that
00:21 is over half. Which obviously on the one hand is the sort of form which can drag you to
00:25 the very top of the Premier League and keep you there. But on the other hand is also the
00:30 kind of form that if it magically disappears because of an international tournament can
00:35 leave you just entirely f***ed. And right now just a quick look at the fixtures Mo Salah
00:40 is definitely going to miss all of these games and depending on how Egypt do could miss all
00:45 of these games as well. So first off just how has he been so good this season? That's
00:50 the really fun part. And then second how can Liverpool possibly counteract this absence?
00:55 Because spoiler they might be able to. Right so here we are this is Liverpool and right
01:00 here on the right hand side of the 433 is Mo Salah and he has been here for pretty much
01:05 his entire time at the club. Except now things are different. When Liverpool were in their
01:10 glory era underclub his job was to start wide but then move into the centre of the pitch
01:15 as the false nine Roberto Firmino would drop out of that space, take up goal scoring positions
01:20 and Trent Alexander-Arnold's job was to provide the width and put in dangerous balls. And
01:25 that's just how this system worked. You got exactly the same from Sadio Mane on the other
01:28 side you got exactly the same from Robertson on that side. My god I'm getting old. And
01:34 then Liverpool would pen teams in with this attacking front five and the midfield three
01:38 they would like dive on loose balls force the high press and keep everything going up
01:41 here. And what that meant for Salah was when Liverpool were building up and they had the
01:44 ball deeper he would sort of receive it in these wide areas but when they were attacking
01:48 he would do all his work much closer to the goal. And just to illustrate that the last
01:52 time Liverpool won the league 2019-2020 this is Mo Salah's heat map across that entire
01:58 season. You can see all the work he does receiving the ball here but there's pretty much a straight
02:02 line you can draw directly to the goal. He virtually never went down the line. It's genuinely
02:07 quite astonishing when you just sort of look at that isn't it? I mean maybe it is to me
02:11 I'm an awful awful nerd but maybe you're normal. Anyway though this is not how Liverpool play
02:15 this season is it? So we'll just reset all of this back into the 4-3-3. Now what Liverpool
02:20 are mostly trying to do is to dominate the centre of the pitch by having the centre midfield
02:24 go over there. Trent Alexander-Arnold comes across from full back they move into a sort
02:28 of situational back three there and Salah holds his width. Now they've got Darwin Nunes
02:33 as a focal point the 2-8 they get up in support of him. The entire team pushes up as a result
02:38 and instead they get that same sort of five attacking players from that shape. And that
02:42 means that Mo Salah is now stuck all the way out here on the right hand side and he has
02:46 to stay here to give the team width. He needs to leave the space for this number 8 usually
02:51 Subozlai to get in and attack and he can't expect any overlap from Alexander-Arnold anymore
02:56 because he's now in the centre of the pitch. And if we take his heat map from the last
02:59 time they won the league and change it with his heat map from this season that's quite
03:04 stark I think. Like he still receives the ball in this area as he was doing previously
03:08 but instead of there being pretty much a straight line direct to the goal it's now far more
03:12 concentrated in this area. And that's simply because every time Liverpool now get into
03:16 the final third whatever it is he's going to do he has to do it at least starting from
03:21 this sort of position. And the simplest way of putting it is that this has worked really
03:26 really well because Mo Salah has been really good at doing it. He's become Liverpool's
03:31 like chief chance creator. All his numbers this season in terms of how he lays on opportunities
03:36 for his teammates have gone way up. His total number of shot creating actions is up per
03:41 90 minutes is creating nearly an entire extra chance per game. His number of key passes
03:46 which is any pass that directly results in a shot that's massively up. His number of
03:50 passes into the final third are up. His passes into the penalty area are up. His through
03:54 balls have nearly doubled. And even something small like his number of progressive passes
03:59 which is sort of like any 10 yard pass that moves you closer to the opposition goal they're
04:04 up too. Now obviously he was instrumental last night in Liverpool demolishing Newcastle.
04:09 That outside of the foot cross he did for Cody Gakpo. That's something you never used
04:12 to normally see him do but is very much typical of the new Mo Salah. But one goal where he
04:17 didn't get the assist but he made it I think is the most new Mo Salah-ist thing you could
04:23 possibly have seen. So we get to the ball really wide on the right hand side here and
04:27 you can just sort of see the other four players in Liverpool's attack. They're all rushing
04:31 to get into sort of a similar position. Gakpo's over here. Jones has come forward. I think
04:35 this is Jota and Gravenberch. Now the key thing is here is that Salah is the most advanced
04:40 player in this attack. He is where Newcastle are currently taking the defensive line from.
04:44 So he faces up Dan Byrne and he continues to push that defensive line back towards its
04:49 own goal. But then and it's the sort of the timing and the vision and the brilliance of
04:52 this rather than the execution right. Rather than taking them all the way back to the line
04:56 he wants to leave that space in behind them. When the rest of his teammates catch up to
05:01 him, he then cuts back onto his left foot which forces the rest of the Newcastle defence
05:06 to stop moving and in that split second where they are going one way and the Liverpool attackers
05:11 are going the other, he threads this perfect pass through which takes all three of these
05:17 defenders out at once. Now the old Mo Salah in that position would have waited for the
05:21 advancing attackers to pull Newcastle's defenders the other way, cut inside on his left foot
05:26 and try and bend one into the top corner. Like how many times did you see him do that
05:30 in the old Liverpool? But now that's not his game. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure we
05:35 will still see the odd screamer from him every now and then. But his first thought used to
05:38 be where is the space going to be for me to get the shot away? Whereas you can see now
05:43 his first thought is how can I create the space for everyone else? The thing is that's
05:48 why he's become such a great chance creator for Liverpool. He's still scoring loads and
05:53 loads of goals. So how does that work when his job is to be so much further away from
05:57 the actual net? Well, first off, he's just a lot smarter as a footballer now. Like his
06:01 job is to provide width to this Liverpool team, but he still can get in towards goal
06:06 when the opportunity avails itself. But he doesn't do that every single time. He picks
06:10 his moments, which means as a defender, you don't know necessarily what he's going to
06:15 do. But this is quite a subtle thing and not to be picking on Dan Byrne here. But if you
06:18 look at the position he's taking up against Salah, previous years, you'd be a couple yards
06:23 further over to the right there because you would be desperately trying to show him down
06:27 the outside. The fact that now he goes either way means you can't do that. You've got to
06:32 put yourself in a position to react to whichever way he goes. But also, and more importantly,
06:36 and where Klopp deserves the credit in all this, by the way, is he's got the team set
06:40 up in such a way that it does still allow for the emergence of the old Mo Salah. Dominic
06:45 Soboslai has been brilliant at it this season, but Darwin Nunes also does it as well when
06:50 the game requires, they will just swap places. Now for Big Dom here, what that means is occasionally
06:55 in the buildup, he will drift out to the right hand side to receive the ball and allow Salah
06:59 to get into the space he would otherwise be occupying for him. And as you can see from
07:03 this goal here, Soboslai is now on the right hand side, meaning that when the chance does
07:06 come in the middle, Salah's in an optimum position to take it. Very difficult to defend
07:11 that one. But even in the Newcastle game here, rather than it being in the buildup, Darwin
07:14 Nunes just takes a position far out on the right hand side and Salah makes his run from
07:20 outside to in. Now, yeah, OK, this one is mostly because the defending is absolutely
07:25 criminal and even if they hadn't swapped over, you would imagine that goal happens exactly
07:29 the same way, just with Salah putting it on for Nunes. But it goes to show that this idea
07:33 is baked into the system. If you're the wide eight or you're the centre forward, just occasionally
07:38 go and try and find some space on the right hand side and know fully confidently that
07:43 Mo Salah will fill that gap. But yeah, he's going to make you loads of chances from this
07:47 position now. He's still capable of scoring you loads of goals from this position. What
07:51 the hell do you do when you lose that for a couple of weeks? Well, as we've already
07:57 seen, there is a degree of fluidity and rotation in this Liverpool system. So it's not that
08:02 Mo Salah is entirely carrying his own job on his own back. In fact, the whole reason
08:07 Liverpool have been doing so well this season, in my opinion, is because while there are
08:12 loads of players doing very specific jobs very well, none of them are exclusively doing
08:17 that job. Like take Alexander-Arnold, for example. He's doing brilliantly in this new
08:21 midfield role, but Liverpool don't play this way all the time and he will still find himself
08:26 in this right back area and he's creating chances from there too. And likewise for Salah,
08:30 while he's been brilliant in this role on the right hand side, as we've seen, he does
08:34 rotate quite a lot with Sobozlai, with Nunes, so he's not doing it all on his own. Now,
08:39 at the time of me recording this, there wasn't yet any official news on whether Sobozlai
08:42 went off with an actual injury or whether it was just precautionary. But if he is fit,
08:46 I would be playing him on the right hand side instead of Salah. Like if we just overlay
08:51 his heat map from this season as well, then yes, first off, well observed, he is absolutely
08:55 fucking everywhere. But also there is a huge concentration of his time on the ball spent
09:00 in these same areas. He's really comfortable receiving it wide. He's really good at holding
09:04 his width. He's very happy to drift into the centre. He can provide a goal threat. He's
09:08 pretty much the Yin to Salah's Yan, Yang, the Yin Yan. He's the Pokemon Red to Salah's
09:15 Pokemon Blue. And just to pull up his chance creation numbers in the Premier League this
09:19 season and compare him to Salah's, that is absolutely a man who is on his level. And
09:24 whisper this one, but I do think Sobozlai will be the long term replacement for Salah
09:29 on that side, should he decides he needs a new challenge or Liverpool want to cash in
09:34 on him. But that's a video for another time. So yeah, I'd have him there and then bring
09:38 Harvey Elliott into the number eight role. In fact, actually, I think the pair of them
09:41 rotating almost constantly between this position and that position would be. Yeah, I think.
09:48 Yeah, that should be. I mean, obviously, the real issue is that Darwin Nunes has to learn
09:52 to finish his goddamn dinner and then we'll be fine. But in terms of the Salah situation,
09:57 those two. Anyway, that was fun, wasn't it? If you enjoyed this video, please do consider
10:00 subscribing to us here on 442. The more subscribers you get, the more fun we have. It's the one
10:05 metric that does really, really help us out. It's why I always ask for it. So we would
10:07 consider pressing that lovely red button for the new year. That'd be that'd be nice. Maybe
10:12 something fun will happen. Maybe fireworks will go off. In the meantime, though, you
10:14 can grab me on Twitter, Insta, everywhere. I don't really mind. @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
10:20 The 442 socials are in the corner of the video and the latest issue of the magazine is in
10:24 your local newsagents. But until next time, that's how Liverpool are good and will be
10:29 gooder. And I am hungry. Bye!