Despite Manchester City’s strong run of form, ESPN FC’s Paul Mariner explains why Liverpool remain his favourites to win the Premier League title.
Mohamed Salah has credited Jurgen Klopp for formulating a tactical plan at Liverpool that gets the best out of the Egyptian international and his forward partners Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
With 17 goals, Salah is the Premier League’s joint-top scorer, while Mane has netted on 12 occasions and Firmino has nine. The potent trio combined to score 91 goals in all competitions last season as Liverpool reached the final of the Champions League and secured a top-four finish.
“I think he [Klopp] build the team, he made the team now fighting for the Premier League. Last season we fight for the Champions League, so I give him more credit,” Salah said in an interview with ESPN Brasil.
“He made the game maybe easier for us. He knows how to rotate the positions a lot. I play No. 9 sometimes, I play on the wing, I play on the left side. We have a good connection together. We are a front three and we know how to play with each other.”
Mohamed Salah, middle, has found his best form under the management of Jurgen Klopp, left.
The forwards enjoy a close relationship on and off the pitch, which was evidenced when Salah allowed Firmino to take a penalty that completed his hat trick in a win vs. Arsenal in December.
“He sits next to me in the game, dressing room,” Salah said of Firmino. “He doesn’t talk English much to the players. But we talk together maybe everyday. In the game I think we played together for one year. He gave me, I think, the most assists of the team and I gave him the same. We play close to each other, we know how to play.
“I think when football players play with each other they know how to play. It doesn’t matter about the language, it doesn’t matter how to talk to each other. But we know each other, we expect the movement from each other.”
The play of Salah, Mane and Firmino has been a significant factor in Liverpool’s push for the title; ahead of Sunday’s visit to Manchester United, they trail reigning champions Manchester City only on goal difference and possess a game in hand.
Excitement is widespread across Merseyside as Liverpool seek their first league crown in nearly three decades, but Salah insists the pressure is not getting to him and his teammates.
“There is pressure because you want to win the Premier League,” he said. “But now it’s more because you’re just close to the end, so there is more pressure. But at the end of the day, the next game, the three points, is very important, like the first game of the season.
“But the people don’t take it like that. They take it like: ‘OK, there’s a pressure now’. But in the beginning of the season you need to win the game to get the three points to be here now. So now you are top of the table or second and you have one game in hand, so you just need to be calm and play football.”
The former Chelsea and Roma player acknowledged how much a title would mean to Liverpool fans and added: “It’s a dream, to be honest. It’s one of my dreams when I came [to Liverpool]: To win the Premier League. I said that last season.
“Maybe the people were saying it was crazy, but it was in my mind always to come here and win the Premier League. I said it last season, I said it at the beginning of the season and now we are close. I hope we are going to win it. We do our best to win it.”
Be the first to comment