One thing that Mo Salah did in Liverpool win on Saturday disproved Wayne Rooney’s criticism

All eyes were firmly on Mo Salah when he came on for the injured Joe Gomez just 25 minutes into Liverpool’s win over Brighton on Saturday, with the Egyptian making his first appearance since his incendiary public comments a week previously.

The home fans at Anfield made their feelings clear by giving the winger a rousing reception when he was introduced, and he rewarded their backing with a lively performance as he sought to silence more than a few of his critics.

There were a couple of imperfect moments in the closing stages at the weekend – he missed a sitter when teed up by Federico Chiesa and then overhit a pass to Andy Robertson when the left-back was through on goal – but on the whole the 33-year-old was quite impressive against the Seagulls.

Salah disproved criticism of his work rate with first-half moment

In separate articles for The Athletic, James Pearce and Oliver Kay referenced one incident in the first half in which Salah belied one of the strongest and most widespread criticisms to have been thrown at him this season.

When Brighton managed to steal possession from Florian Wirtz and charged upfield in search of an equaliser, it was Liverpool’s number 11 who raced back the quickest to his own team’s penalty area to try and snuff out the danger, with a poor cross ultimately ensuring that the chance came to nothing.

Salah proves his critics wrong with energetic performance

After the Reds lost 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest last month, Wayne Rooney called for Arne Slot to drop Salah (which he did for the win at West Ham a few days later), saying that the Egyptian was ‘not helping defensively’ and ‘not running’ when his team didn’t have the ball.

Perhaps there have been instances this season where the 33-year-old could’ve worked harder out of possession, but that accusation certainly couldn’t be levelled at him on Saturday, especially in the aforementioned instance where he raced to track back after Wirtz was dispossessed.

As per FBref, Liverpool’s number 11 recorded the third-most ball recoveries of any LFC player on the day with five, which illustrates that he was willing to put in the hard yards, and nobody could accuse him of having mentally checked out with his display at Anfield.

Of course, it’ll be another few weeks before we see Salah in a Reds shirt again as he’s now gone off to the Africa Cup of Nations, but the short-term outlook for him on Merseyside seems much brighter than it did a week ago.

The Egyptian played as though he had quite a few people to whom he wanted to prove a point. As Micah Richards said on Monday, the 33-year-old ‘makes your team better’, and for all that his levels have dipped this season, he showed with his endeavour on Saturday that class is permanent.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Brighton press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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