“We played a good game against a difficult side,” Slot says; manager singles out Joe Gomez for praise
Liverpool boss Arne Slot is happy with the way Mohamed Salah has conducted himself, after the Egypt international made a return to the squad following his Africa Cup of Nations duties.
Salah and Slot fell out last autumn and the forward was dropped for Liverpool’s Champions League trip to Inter Milan, although they did make up before the Egyptian left for Africa. Salah was welcomed back to the starting XI on Wednesday as Liverpool thrashed Marseille 3-0 in France.
“It says a lot about how big a professional he is that he can be away for more than a month with a different team and be so fit to play 90 for us after one day’s training,” Slot said.
“He was so close to a goal, it would usually be a goal from him, but it didn’t harm us because we scored three.”
Slot praised his players for their performance against one of Ligue One’s strongest teams under Roberto De Zerbi.
“I saw a lot of good individual performances tonight but I would like to single out Joe Gomez,” Slot said. “He has suffered a lot with injuries in the last few years and I haven’t picked him sometimes when he has been fit. Tonight he was outstanding and so important to us winning 3-0.
“It’s always difficult to play Marseille because of their passionate fans and the quality of their players, but what makes it even harder is the quality of their manager. We were prepared for that. We took the ball off them three or four times in the first half but couldn’t find the player who was completely free, apart from one time and he was fractionally offside.
“On the ball we were controlled but what made the difference this time was that after we had a big chance and hit the post, they had a big chance and put it over. Usually this season that goes in. But we were able to make it 2-0, 3-0 and so that makes the perception of the game completely different.”
It was a different result to their performance against Burnley last weekend, when they took the lead at Anfield but failed to put away their chances and the Clarets levelled to force a draw. Against Marseille Liverpool also missed chances but were helped on by an own goal in the second half before Cody Gakpo made it 3-0 in stoppage time.
“Against Burnley we created three or four times more than we did tonight but tonight we scored three,” Slot said. “Everyone can disagree with me but we played a very good game against Burnley and another good game tonight, but the tactics were different.”
