Journalist says one Liverpool player was ‘miles off his best’ on Sunday; lost the ball 15 times

Liverpool will have quite a few regrets over their failure to defeat Manchester United on Sunday, and a prominent journalist has named one member of Jurgen Klopp’s side who’ll have been ‘kicking himself’ over his performance.

Mo Salah rescued a point for the visitors after converting a late penalty, in the process becoming the player to have scored more Premier League goals against the Red Devils than anyone else. However, his overall display still came in for critiquing from James Pearce on the Walk On podcast after the match.

The Athletic journalist said of the Egyptian King: “I think, deep down, Salah will know he was a million miles off his best, especially with the amount of space and how vulnerable United are. He’ll be kicking himself that he didn’t do more damage to them.”

It may seem harsh to criticise the man who ultimately spared us from defeat at Old Trafford, and has once again been our most reliable goalscorer this season, but Salah was indeed well below his stratospheric best on Sunday.

As per Sofascore, he took six shots yesterday but only scored with one, while he lost four of his five duels, posted the second-lowest pass success rate of any Liverpool player (76%) and gave away possession 15 times, the joint-second most among Klopp’s side.

He was culpable of missing one particularly inviting opportunity that he’d usually gobble up in his sleep, missing the target from close range after he followed up on a rebound from an initial Andre Onana save in the second half.

Salah may have a happy track record of scoring against United, and he came up clutch on Sunday when we really needed him, but his overall performance wasn’t anywhere close to what’d be considered his best.

That said, his incredible consistency in front of goal means that you’d fancy him to find the net in every single match that he plays, even if he’s having what some might label a quiet day.