Salah must prove his worth again at Liverpool after being dropped

The warning signs were there for Mohamed Salah.

His form wasn’t great. Pundits were starting to get on his back. Fixtures were coming thick and fast for Liverpool. Plus, manager Arne Slot clearly needed to switch things up amid the team’s worst run of results in more than 70 years.

And so, Salah was dropped.

Indeed, he didn’t even come off the bench in the crisis-averting 2-0 win at West Ham in the Premier League on Sunday.

Cue hysteria, and maybe some over-reaction.

Questions about whether this was the beginning of the end for Salah at Liverpool might be premature.

The trip to West Ham came in the middle of a run of five matches in 15 days for Liverpool. Missing out on the middle one of those — against one of the worst teams in the league — was hardly big a deal, even if it was the first time in 19 months that Salah began as a substitute in a Premier League game.

“Mo has had an unbelievable career here at this club and will have a very good future at this club because he’s such a special player,” Slot said.

“Four games in 10 days, with only 14 to 15 outfield players available for us, then you have to decide once in a while to make a certain lineup and you try to pick the best lineup for every single game.”

Expect Salah to be back in the team when Liverpool hosts Sunderland on Wednesday in a rare midweek round of matches in England’s top flight.

However, it does put some pressure on the 33-year-old Egyptian to start delivering, given he has just four goals so far in league play.

And it won’t be long before he heads to the Africa Cup of Nations. That might be more of an acid test for Slot: If, in Salah’s absence, Liverpool stumbles on a formula that improves results, what does the Dutch coach do then?

There’s no doubt Liverpool is already looking to the future with the signings of Florian Wirtz (22), Hugo Ekitike (23) and Alexander Isak (26). And in Isak, who scored the opener against West Ham, Slot now has an out-and-out striker who should eventually ease the burden on Salah.

But Salah is a club great who has supreme fitness and drive, and spearheaded Liverpool’s charge to the league title last season.

Don’t be surprised if he becomes Liverpool’s go-to attacker once again when Liverpool gets through this tough spell, which saw it lose eight of its previous 11 matches heading into the West Ham game.

“He has been so important for this club,” Slot said, “and will be important for this club in the future.”

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