Can Mo Salah regain ‘world-class’ form in Champions League?

His contract, which makes him the best-paid player at Liverpool, enters its final year this summer and there is little prospect of another renewal. The record-breaking Egypt international, 33, is finally running out of road.

The question is, how will his story at Anfield end?

Salah believes he has unfinished business — more major trophies to win. Yet this competition, starting with a round-of-16 match away to Galatasaray on Tuesday, may be his only opportunity to help Liverpool to one.

He has lifted the European Cup once, and walked past it as a defeated finalist twice — he will surely be desperate for one more crack at club football’s most prestigious trophy, and even now he stands on the verge of two records — a goal will make him the top-scoring African in the competition, and some action will mean he will have the most appearances in the Champions League of any Liverpool player.

The issue is, he is finding goals — his currency over the past nine years — much harder to come by.

It’s not for a lack of effort. “He’s working harder than ever,” one senior club official said of Salah’s physical output figures and defensive work rate, before noting that while he remained a creative player, his goalscoring output was “no longer world-class”.

There is mitigation: new signings; injuries; a lack of confidence across the team; a tactical trend towards more defensive football in the Premier League; the fickle nature of finishing; and the devastating and incalculable effects of grief after Diogo Jota’s death in July last year.

“I watch a lot of football and creating chances is not something happening a lot anymore; other teams are well organised, powerful and strong,” Arne Slot, the Liverpool head coach, said when asked about Liverpool’s difficulties in creating chances, like the clear-cut ones Salah used to feast on.

“The last game we played here, so many examples of other games, we had one cleared off the line, five seconds later a penalty against us.

“I always believe things won’t always go like this so we are trying to create more chances. We don’t have a lot of time on the training pitch but we have meetings to show which situations where we can make better decisions. We are working on that but it helps if a player like Florian Wirtz is back, would definitely help if Alexander Isak [who is injured] was available more. Mo of course not being available when at Afcon, so there are definitely reasons for it.

“We do a lot of similar things that we did last year. We press, counterpress, but teams are organised more and more in the same style, man-to-man over the pitch or low block with 11. So we are working on it.”

The Premier League in its present state — physical, intense, and focused on set-piece goals — is hardly fertile ground for attacking players.

Forwards in the English top flight are having fewer touches and shots this season, and scoring less. Salah is no exception. But whereas once he could play on the periphery and still decide games with a moment of quality, those flourishes are becoming even rarer due to that tactical context.

After leading Liverpool for so long, Salah is now looking to his team-mates to help get the best out of him — something that they recognise.

“It’s been a tricky and challenging season for all of us,” Alexis Mac Allister, the midfielder, said. “So it’s up to us to find the right things for him. It is definitely our responsibility to get the best out of him. We did it last season. This season [we] struggled a little bit more.

“I think he said it a couple of times, he is still learning to play with new players, we are dealing with that and that is the situation we are in.

“He knows very well what he has to do to improve his numbers. He is a fantastic player, I don’t need to say it, and I am pretty sure he is going to keep showing what he can do.”

The Champions League, in which matches tend to be more open, may offer Salah a chance to show his quality, not least with Wirtz, the Germany playmaker, expected to return to the starting XI after a back injury.

Wirtz has needed time to adjust to the Premier League but has taken to the Champions League and produced strong performances against Atletico Madrid, Eintracht Frankfurt, Real Madrid and Marseille. If he is able to help Salah rediscover his goalscoring touch, perhaps he will show he is ready to inherit his mantle as Liverpool’s star and find some consolation for a fading one.

Alisson, the Liverpool goalkeeper, has not travelled with the team to Turkey, with Giorgi Mamardashvili set to start in goal for Liverpool and Hugo Ekitike expected to lead the line. Federico Chiesa is also absent because of illness.

“Fede felt unwell last night,” Slot said. “Ali was in the [training] session [on Monday] but he felt something towards the end. People looked at it and he decided and we decided it wasn’t good enough to travel. There’s definitely a chance for Sunday [at home to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League]. It’s not a big thing but it’s too much for tomorrow.”

Galatasaray v Liverpool

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