“You can’t…” – Paul Merson says there’s one Liverpool player who Slot mustn’t pick v Sunderland | OneFootball

Paul Merson has dispensed some advice to Arne Slot regarding Liverpool’s team selection for their Premier League clash against Sunderland on Wednesday night.

The Reds boss made the bold call of dropping Mo Salah to the bench for the 2-0 win away to West Ham on Sunday, with the Dutchman subsequently praising the ‘professional’ manner in which the winger reacted to that personal disappointment.

The 33-year-old remained an unused substitute at the London Stadium, with the head coach’s decision vindicated by a strong team performance and a much-needed victory after three heavy defeats on the spin.

Merson urges Slot to bench Salah once more

In his regular Premier League predictions column for Sportskeeda, Merson has backed Liverpool to narrowly overcome Sunderland at Anfield tomorrow, but he hopes that Slot will consign the Egyptian forward to the bench once more.

The Sky Sports pundit wrote: ‘I’d be shocked if Arne Slot decides to bring Mohamed Salah back into the Liverpool team for this game. That isn’t the right thing to do. He was dropped for a reason and Liverpool won.

‘Salah needs to be on the bench to get back to his best. You can’t keep picking players based on how good they were in the past. Slot made the right decision to drop Salah in the last game and he should stick to it.’

(Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

Will Slot stick or twist with Salah dilemma?

After a solid team display and a welcome victory against West Ham at the weekend, ordinarily we’d make a strong case for ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ in terms of the starting XI for tomorrow night.

However, with such a short turnaround between matches amid a hectic period of four games in 10 days for Liverpool, it’d be understandable if Slot were to shuffle the pack for the Sunderland clash, and that might include a recall for Salah.

Even the Egyptian’s most ardent backers would admit that the 33-year-old has fallen short of his usual world-class standards this season, and Wayne Rooney has questioned the winger’s work ethic out of possession despite acknowledging his ‘club legend’ status at Anfield.

We can understand why Merson has called for the Reds boss to stick with what worked against West Ham and that no player should be selected solely on their reputation.

The flip side is that Salah could come back into the starting XI with a point to prove to his boss after being made to watch the entirety of Sunday’s match from the subs’ bench.

We fully trust in Slot to select the line-up that he believes is most capable of collecting three points tomorrow night.

You can watch Slot’s full pre-Sunderland press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: