Mo Salah’s injury has highlighted a serious problem at Liverpool.
Against Crystal Palace there was a sight at Anfield that the stadium has barely seen, or perhaps not at all.
Salah pulling up with a muscle injury and being forced off the pitch.
The Egyptian during his stellar career at the club that has gone on for nine years has had an almost spotless injury record. The only time he has had an issue was in Jurgen Klopp’s final season when Salah came back from AFCON, suffering from a strain.
Some may put this down to the ravages of time catching up with Salah’s body. He’s not getting any younger after all and he will be 34-years-old come the summer.
Naturally, he’s going to slow down a little. Naturally, he’s going to pick up more injuries. But was this injury really down to Salah’s ageing body? Or could it have highlighted a serious problem at Liverpool?
As Simon Brundish on X highlighted this was the 31st ocassion that a Liverpool player had been forced to be substituted this season – that is a record high.
Never has it been this high under Jurgen Klopp, who had played a higher intensity game that was supposedly more prone to injuries – especially muscle overloads.
As opposed to Klopp, who demanded a lot of intensity, Arne Slot’s training has concentrated on periodisation and Liverpool players have trained less under the Dutchman than they did under the German.
This reaped its rewards for Slot at Feyenoord, where his players rarely ever got injured. But these methods are clearly not working at Liverpool.
Brundish above has argued in his brilliant article breaking down Hugo Ekitike’s injury that Liverpool are not preparing their players for high intensity scenarios.