Arne Slot praises Mohamed Salah, and Joe Gomez, as he assesses Liverpool’s 3-0 win over Marseille in the Champions League
Arne Slot paid tribute to Mohamed Salah’s professionalism after the Liverpool star marked his first start since November by completing 90 minutes in the 3-0 win over Marseille.
Salah, who hadn’t played for the Reds since the mid-December win over Brighton & Hove Albion due to Africa Cup of Nations duty with Egypt, only returned to the club’s AXA Training Centre on Tuesday before declaring himself fit for inclusion for the Champions League trip to France.
Goals from Dominik Szoboszlai, Jeremie Frimpong and Cody Gakpo wrapped up the points for the visitors at Orange Velodrome and Slot praised Salah for his conditioning after a first 90 minutes for the club since the 4-1 defeat to PSV on November 26.
“It helps that he’s been with us for so long and knows his team-mates,” Slot said. “It says a lot about how professional he is, that he’s been away for a month with a different team, that he is so fit to play today 90 minutes.
“He was close to a goal. Good ball from Cody. Usually that’s a goal from him but it didn’t harm us because we scored three. Overall it was good.
“The one I want to point out is (Joe) Gomez. He hasn’t played a lot in the last one-and-a-half years.
“Suffered sometimes from injury, sometimes I didn’t play him when he was fit. The few times he played were in the FA Cup and League Cup. Tonight he was great.”
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Slot added: “It’s always very difficult to play Marseille because of their passionate fans and the quality of their players, but what makes it even harder is the quality of their manager. We were prepared for that.
“We took the ball off them three or four times in the first half but couldn’t find the player who was completely free, apart from one time and he was fractionally offside.
“On the ball we were controlled but what made the difference this time was that after we had a big chance and hit the post, they had a big chance and put it over. Usually this season, that goes in.
“But we were able to make it 2-0, 3-0 and so that makes the perception of the game completely different.
“Against Burnley we created three or four times more than we did tonight but tonight we scored three.
“Everyone can disagree with me but we played a very good game against Burnley and another good game tonight, but the tactics were different.”
Liverpool return to Premier League action on Saturday when they travel to Bournemouth for a 5.30pm kick-off.
