What Arne Slot said about Mo Salah post-match spoke volumes about Liverpool’s mindset against PSG | OneFootball

Arne Slot has explained why he left Mo Salah on the substitutes’ bench for the entirety of Liverpool’s 2-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.

Having been the subject of much criticism after the Reds’ FA Cup thrashing by Manchester City last weekend, the Egyptian was omitted from the starting XI to face PSG four days later, with Jeremie Frimpong instead preferred on the right in a wing-back role.

DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL EMPIRE OF THE KOP APP FOR ALL THE LATEST & BREAKING UPDATES – STRAIGHT TO YOUR PHONE! ON APPLE & GOOGLE PLAY

However, despite the Merseysiders trailing 2-0 from the 65th minute onwards, our third-highest scorer of all time wasn’t called upon at any stage to try and make an impact off the bench.

Slot explains why he didn’t bring Salah off the bench

In his post-match press conference, Slot was asked why he didn’t deploy Salah even when Liverpool were losing and in need of a goal to give themselves a foothold in the tie.

The head coach explained (via liverpoolfc.com): “I think in the last part of the game, it was more about surviving for us than there was ever a chance that we could score. You never know, because last season we scored five minutes before the end, Harvey Elliott [scored] when I took Mo off.

“I think this was a 20, 25 minutes where we were only defending and Mo has so much quality, but for Mo to be 20, 25 minutes defending inside his own box, I think it’s better for him to save his energy for a lot of games that are coming up in the upcoming weeks.”

Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust

Surely it would’ve been worth giving Salah some minutes?

That Slot attributed Salah’s no-show last night to Liverpool being in survival mode speaks volumes of the Reds’ mindset in Paris, with the final quarter of the game viewed as damaged limitation rather than seeking an opportunity to halve the deficit and set up a finely-poised second leg at Anfield next week.

We get the argument for not being excessively gung-ho against a PSG side who can rip apart the best teams in Europe, and it’d be fair to say that the Egyptian winger has been enduring a miserable season by his own exceptional standards.

However, it was still surprising that he wasn’t given some bit of game-time off the bench at the Parc des Princes. Even if he’d had just a quarter of an hour on the pitch, he might still have conjured up one moment of decisive brilliance for his team.

Instead, with Slot choosing to hold him back for upcoming fixtures, he’s basically putting the onus on Salah to deliver against Fulham on Saturday if – as seems likely, juding by the Dutchman’s remarks – the 33-year-old is restored to the starting XI.

Even 12 months ago, it would’ve been inconceivable that our number 11 would’ve been left on the bench by choice with Liverpool losing in a Champions League quarter-final.

Despite his loss of form since last summer, it’s still mind-boggling that he played no part last night, instead being left to undergo some post-match drills in order to maintain sharpness for upcoming games.