Arne Slot insists Mohamed Salah still has the “fire” to play for Liverpool and will only be concerned if the winger accepts being dropped.
Salah was benched for the Champions League win at Eintracht Frankfurt and went six games without a goal, nearing his longest goalless run for the club.
Despite this, Slot is confident Salah will soon regain the form that has seen him score 248 goals in 413 appearances for Liverpool.
“I hope he is not ever going to take it well, because the moment you are going to take it well then you miss the fire,” said the Liverpool boss.
“That goes for every player, by the way. Not only Mo. The moment you start to accept that you are not playing anymore and you are fine with that, then you miss the fire that is needed to play at this level.”
Slot added: “My experience in general is that it’s quite hard for a player to understand why he’s not playing. They all see football through their eyes, and again that’s a good thing.
“If you go over to all 20 players now to name a line-up, I’d be surprised if there’s one player who doesn’t put himself in.
“That’s not to say that they don’t understand we have more than a few good players here and once in a while somebody isn’t playing.
“But if we have to play a Champions League final tomorrow and you ask them to make a line-up, I’d be surprised if one of them doesn’t put themselves in – except maybe youngsters Rio (Ngumoha) or Trey (Nyoni).”
“The way he trains, and when we do finishing drills, you cannot lose that.
“The only thing is we have to keep bringing him in to those positions and he has to bring himself into those positions.
“There are a lot of things that can happen when you get older. But if I can select one player who has the ball 12, 13 yards from goal and he should score that to save my reputation, I would have Mo in that position. Now he needs to show that he can get into those positions.”
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