Mohamed Salah’s 2024/25 UEFA Champions League campaign ended in tears. He was inconsolable after witnessing his Liverpool side exit the competition because of a loss to Paris Saint-Germain on a penalty shootout (4-1 after 1-1 draw) at Anfield.
The Egyptian winger failed to score in either of the two legs. PSG left-back Nuno Mendes stuck to him like a plague, stringently marking the Egyptian winger throughout both games.
The 32-year-old struggled to impose his authority against PSG. However, in his defence, Salah didn’t get the proper support he needed to get out of his shell. Nobody stepped up to help him on the right flank where Mendes tightly marked him. Neither of the midfielders showed any desire to move into the right flank to create a 2v1 situation for Mendes and open up space for Salah. Diogo Jota could’ve swapped positions with the winger, but ended up being isolated in the middle.
Even Trent Alexander-Arnold was being careful with his movement because of PSG’s counter-attacking threat. Salah was often bundled into difficult positions because of multiple PSG players often closing in on him. The Liverpool players didn’t have the idea of counter-pressing the PSG players to cause them to ease up on Salah and open up more room for the 32-year-old to move around.
On top of that, there was the burden of scorign goals that lingered over Salah. The Egyptian winger has 54 goal contributions (32 goals, 22 assists) this season. The closest to him in this regard are Cody Gakpo (21 goal contributions) and Luis Diaz (17 contributions). Even by combining Gakpo and Diaz’s contributions, it doesn’t tie up Salah’s. The Reds are too reliant on Salah bailing them out of difficult situations throughout the 2024/25 season.
The loss to PSG proved that Liverpool tend to run out of ideas in certain matches where Salah’s threat is neutralized. This has caused many fans to slam the owners FSG (Fenway Sports Group) for failing to sign an equally prolific forward to step up when Mo is struggling. There is a feeling that Salah doesn’t have someone to belief in to step up when he’s struggling, like perhaps Kylian Mbappe or Vinicius Jr can rely on Liverpool target Rodrygo to score goals when they struggle.
Salah has proven to be Liverpool’s savior throughout this campaign. He has often masked over poor performances of his teammates by scoring clutch goals or creating chances out of nothing. Unfortunately, none of his teammates could inspire themselves to produce a clinical performance against PSG and return the favor by setting up a few big chances or even winning a penalty in normal time for Salah.
