If the 4-1 home defeat to PSV in the Champions League prompted Arne Slot to drop Mohamed Salah, the bigger turning point may have been the narrower loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in October. Marc Cucurella’s explanation for Chelsea’s winner highlighted a recurring weakness: the full-back moved into the box untracked to lay on the goal for Estevao. “We know that Salah is already ready to attack, to play on the counter-attack, so we know, and we practise, and the manager tells us, that the space is maybe there,” he told Sky Sports. “Today it worked and we can win the game in this way.”
In each of Liverpool’s next four Premier League defeats, opponents focused attacks down the left wing — Liverpool’s right flank. When Jamie Carragher says Salah has “thrown his right-back under the bus,” this is the pattern he means. Manchester United, Brentford, Manchester City and Nottingham Forest all attacked more down Salah’s side, exposing consistent space behind him.
Salah has never been renowned for defensive work. Under Jürgen Klopp, teammates like Jordan Henderson helped shore up that side of the pitch. But the data show Salah’s defensive contribution fell markedly after Klopp’s exit. Under Slot, the previous trade-off — Salah avoiding defensive duties in return for delivering goals and assists — appears to have broken down. Salah himself admitted the arrangement: “Now I don’t have to defend much. … I told him, ‘As long as you rest me defensively, I will provide offensively’.” Yet his output has dipped: six non-penalty goals in his last 33 Liverpool appearances is a clear decline, and it no longer compensates for the defensive problems his positioning creates.
The PSV goal underlined the issue: a simple drop of the shoulder by Mauro Junior allowed him to skip away from Salah and set up the assist. Carragher described the challenge as “embarrassing” and the space the attacker could open up as alarming. Season-on-season metrics show Salah’s defensive work diminishing, while his attacking physical measures — overall sprints and top speed — have also fallen, consistent with the natural decline of a player now 34.
A key metric illustrates Salah’s defensive absence: the number of times a wide forward runs back into their own half to regain defensive position. Of the 45 wide forwards who have played 270 minutes or more this season, Salah makes that run less often than anyone else. That reluctance to track back helps explain Slot’s selection choices. “What are you going to do as a manager? You are going to take out the one player in your team who you have allowed not to defend,” Carragher said about Slot’s decision at West Ham.
Practically, that meant Salah was an unused substitute in the 2-0 win at the London Stadium and again on the bench at Leeds when Liverpool were defending a lead. As Carragher observed about the Leeds game: “Why would you bring him on? You don’t need a goal, you need not to concede.” Statistical analysis of pressing intensity shows Liverpool are much more aggressive on their right when Salah is off the pitch; the vulnerability Cucurella described becomes less apparent without him.
That said, removing Salah didn’t solve every problem — Leeds still found a stoppage-time equaliser — and Slot faces other tactical challenges. But the combination of Salah’s reduced attacking returns, his decline in defensive effort, and his outspoken criticism of the manager has damaged trust. Unless he can regain the attacking numbers that justified his defensive latitude, his status as a defensive liability will continue to undermine his chances of being trusted back into the side.