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For 86 minutes, Liverpool did not have a good evening against PSG on Wednesday.
Despite managing to keep the French champions out up to that point, the Reds were so far below their best as to be almost unrecognisable.
No player fitted this description quite like Mohamed Salah, who was completely anonymous for Liverpool.
It wasn’t even that Salah was quiet, the Egyptian continually made wrong decisions when on the ball and in good attacking areas.
It was not like him at all.
As a result, it was not a great surprise to see Arne Slot decide to take Salah off with just a few minutes of the 90 left to play.
And as Slot looked back on Elliott’s clinching goal in his Friday press conference, he made a point to mention Salah’s reaction to being taken off.
Photo by Ibrahim Ezzat/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Being substituted in a big Champions League knockout game is not something Salah is used to at all.
The 32-year-old usually stay on the pitch right up until the final whistle, no matter how he is playing on the night.
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And according to Slot, Salah showed his dissatisfaction when his number went up on Wednesday.
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“And there’s a reason for that because he is a player who can score a goal for us even if he’s not playing his best game.
It was a completely normal reaction.”
Given that Liverpool have three big games coming up in the space of eight days, there is a feeling that Slot will rotate a little for Saturday’s clash against Southampton.
However, continuing in his press conference, the Dutchman suggested that he will try and keep the changes to a minimum.
“If, if I make the choice to play other players that is because I think that’s the biggest chance to win tomorrow and not because I want to rest them for the game against Paris Saint Germain,” Slot insisted.
“The only way I make a change is maybe because it’s only two days in between and I might feel that playing someone else is a better option because we have many players who are of equal quality.
“But that only has to do with us having a bigger chance of winning the game against Southampton rather than having anything to do with the Paris Saint Germain game.”
In terms of Salah, Liverpool have a better chance of winning any match at all with him on the pitch.