Liverpool: Arne Slot issues message on Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk form after title slip-up | OneFootball

Salah and Van Dijk struggled on a difficult afternoon for Liverpool at Fulham

Arne Slot has backed Mohamed Salah to rediscover his form and help Liverpool get over the line to secure the Premier League title.

But Slot is confident Salah, who missed a good chance at Craven Cottage, will get over his mini-dip in form and “show up again”.

Slot said: “Maybe he should see it as a compliment [that people are talking about it] because his numbers were not normal [when he was scoring].

Salah missed a good chance against Fulham and has now gone four club games without a goal

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“The good thing about Mo is he knows what kind of player he is. Mo will show up again, I don’t worry about that.”

Slot also defended Virgil van Dijk, who endured a difficult afternoon against Fulham striker Rodrigo Muniz after a tough night against Everton frontman Beto on Wednesday.

Slot said: “I mainly give credit to other players as well. Virgil is not the first defender to find it difficult against Beto. And you have to give credit to him [Muniz].

“I still see a lot of things that Virgil does really well. And if you play 56 or 60 games a season, even for him there will be one of two moments when he could have done better.

Van Dijk had a difficult afternoon against Fulham striker Rodrigo Muniz

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“But in general, apart from the one time he missed the ball, when I analyse Virgil’s performance against Everton he was outstanding. So I do not worry about him.”

Liverpool missed a chance to move 14 points clear of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League as they were stunned by three Fulham goals in 14 minutes in the first half.

Slot dismissed the idea that Liverpool were complacent at Craven Cottage but issued a message to his players about what is needed to seal the title.

Liverpool need 11 points from their remaining seven games and Slot said: “We have a week to prepare for West Ham and everyone has to be aware that the only we can win a game a football is through hard work for 90 minutes.”

Slot added: “That was a difficult spell of 14 minutes [three goals conceded]. Apart from [Fulham's] quality and finishing, it was mostly to do with our errors.

“In general we are not making many of these errors - let alone three in one game. Our second half performance was so much better but it is hard to win a game at this level if you concede three in the first half.

"It's not often we concede three goals let alone in one game or 15 minutes. We could have prevented it. We scored a good goal but apart from that the second half performance was much more what we’re like.

“Conceding three goals like we did is not of the standards of Liverpool. We were creating chance after chance after chance [towards the end]. In the end we lacked time to make up for the three mistakes we made in the first half."