SALAH’S TOLD TO STAY CALM
Klopp has solution for misfiring Mo
from DAVID MADDOCK in Naples
JURGEN KLOPP is helping Mo Salah ensure a dip in form does not turn into a full-blown crisis.
The Liverpool manager knows his star striker is unhappy with his game after a record-breaking 44 goals last season and is upset at the chances he is missing that he would usually finish clinically.
But ahead of a visit to Napoli’s intimidating Stadio San Paolo the German coach also knows this is exactly the sort of cycle even the greatest hitmen go through.
Klopp refused to detail exactly what he has said to Salah but, as a manager who has helped build and rebuild the confidence of some of the world’s best, including Robert Lewandowski, he knows that the answer lies in staying calm.
“Be relaxed, completely relaxed, because there is no need for anything else,” said Klopp. “The quality is there and so everything is fine.
“My problem is if I say now that I spoke to Mo, then tomorrow all the people will be guessing what I said to him and that just makes it much bigger.
“This is not information for here – it is between us, always. My interest is to have him in a completely normal mindset.”
Positions
Klopp knows that Salah is suffering, adding: “If you play tennis and your forehand is good and the next day your forehand is not there, you think, ‘What is it?’. That’s how sport works.
“It is about your confidence. But his game is really good.
“His last game (Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Chelsea) was really good – he was in the positions but then the last two balls were not too cool.
“If the player is not happy with it, that is clear. If you have a chance, you want to score.”
The trick for Klopp, as he did with Lewandowski when he first arrived at Borussia Dortmund, is to ensure that the “normal” dip in confidence from last season’s miraculous high is merely that. And he points to other great strikers who have had the same questions asked of them.
He said: “Scoring 44 goals last year, then you don’t score from the first day of this season – of course something changes.
“That happens. If you don’t score 10 goals in your first seven games, then everybody asks if you can do it again.
“It is completely normal, all normal. Even they talk about this with Harry Kane.
“Now he scored two goals last week, but before that he was, ‘Not even half he was last year’.
“That is what people were saying.
“But even Ian Rush didn’t score 40 goals season after season for 10 seasons. That’s not how it works.”