Klopp hopes pep talk will restore Salah’s confidence
Manager insists forward is ‘relaxed’ about form Choice of referee angers Napoli coach Ancelotti
Jurgen Klopp has given a pep talk to striker Mohamed Salah as he seeks a revival in confidence and swagger heading into tonight’s Champions League group tie in Naples.
Salah missed several chances against Chelsea last weekend, shooting tamely in areas where he was ruthless a year ago.
The Liverpool manager was reluctant to divulge the nature of the private conversations with the Egyptian, but there was a broad theme of reassurance ahead of the match in the Stadio San Paolo.
“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,” said Klopp.
“It is about your confidence. His game is really good. His last game was really good – he was in the positions, but then the last two balls were not too cool. That happens. He lost balls in those situations last year. How do you deal with it? Be relaxed, completely relaxed, because there is no need for anything else. Completely relaxed. The quality is there and so everything is fine.”
Asked what he had said to Salah, Klopp replied: “Nothing that I can tell you here because that is between us, like always. The only thing that is obvious – it was absolutely clear that we would stand together in a situation like this here and talk about it.
“Even Harry Kane. They talked about him and then he scored two goals last weekend.”
Klopp said the player who struck 44 last season should not be judged solely on his goals.
“My problem is if I say now that I spoke to Mo then all the people will be guessing what I said to him and that makes it much bigger. If I spoke to him, then I know what I would have to say,” said Klopp.
“There are not big talks necessary, just a completely normal situation. Even Ian Rush didn’t score 40 goals in 10 seasons, season after season. That’s not how it works.
“You have to be a proper threat. As an offensive player you have to work hard. At the end of the season it depends how much success we have had as a team if it is successful or not. There is no personal success possible. All awards are for everyone. We do what we do best.
“So, in these situations going through them there is no advice, you cannot give it, because the experience they make themselves. They know. ‘I didn’t score, I didn’t score, so next time I pass’. But it is about judging the situation again. ‘Can I shoot? Yes. Score’.”
While Klopp proposed a course of relaxation therapy for Salah, team-mate Georginio Wijnaldum said it was only a matter of time before the goals flow. He revealed an extreme goalscoring challenge.
“I’ve told him that he’s got to get more hattricks,” said Wijnaldum.
“He’s had enough of scoring braces, he has to get three. I told him I expect more hat-tricks this season. Last year, there was only one. He said that I was right. I told him, ‘Mo, you are a top player. If you look at [Lionel] Messi and [Cristiano] Ronaldo, they score a lot of hat-tricks – you have to do the same if you want to compete with them’.
“We were joking, but if someone can deal with pressure, it is Mo. Last season, he had pressure when people were saying he had to be the top scorer of the league. We told him he couldn’t let anyone catch him. When he was on 18 goals, he said: ‘In my head, I can get 32’. Mo is not someone that is scared of pressure. He embraces the pressure. He knows that he can do it.”
Napoli coach Carlo Ancelotti is unhappy with the choice of referee, Hungarian Viktor Kassai, having complained about his officiating when Real Madrid defeated Bayern Munich in April 2017.
“He expelled unjustly Arturo Vidal and gave a goal to Cristiano Ronaldo in offside,” said Ancelotti.
The former AC Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea manager was complimentary about his English opponents, claiming Liverpool were now one of Europe’s elite teams.
Klopp was cynical about the praise, though. “I like Carlo Ancelotti, I respect him a lot. He’s a fantastic guy, he was a world-class player and he’s a worldclass manager. And, as we say in Germany, he’s obviously a smart fox,” said Klopp.
“Saying all these nice things about me before a game – it’s nice, obviously, but it’s tactics. He wants to try to bring the very nice fella out of me. I am here to be ready for a real battle and stuff like that.”