Jurgen Klopp addresses Mohamed Salah’s ‘difficult time’ amid contract concerns

The Egyptian superstar endured a frustrating evening despite the Reds winning by two goals in Lisbon as Jurgen Klopp addressed the player’s performance

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Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp admitted Mohamed Salah is going through a “tough period” after missing several chances on Tuesday Champions League win at Benfica.

Goals from Ibrahima Konate, Sadio Mane and Luis Diaz were enough for Klopp’s side, who endured a second-half onslaught from the Portuguese hosts, for whom Darwin Nunez scored in the quarter-final first leg. However, Salah didn’t have his strongest evening, missing several chances for the Reds before being substituted off just after the hour mark.

It came as a result Former Reds star John Aldridge claimed Salah’s body language is ‘not great’ in his team’s 2-0 win watford, and puts it down to the fact that the Egyptian was “mentally” not on the pitch because of all the excitement. Last week, Salah’s Egyptian page could not qualify for the World Cup after losing to Senegal on penalties. After the game, Egyptian Sports Minister Ashraf Sobhi had a conversation with Salah, telling him to leave Liverpool.

However, Salah is believed to be the Reds’ top scorer close to ending months of speculation by agreeing on a new deal at Anfield, where he will remain at the club for the highlights of his career. That led to Sobhi admitted that Salah informed him that his intention was to stay on Merseyside and write a new deal at the club.

Klopp admitted after Tuesday’s Lisbon win that the return from international duty and the number of games played had taken its toll on the player but downplayed concerns it could become an ongoing issue. The Reds manager said: “Every player in this situation wants to score and it’s clear Mo wants to score too. It’s a difficult time, the boys have come back from Africa, it’s really not easy. Massive pressure. You need some time to calm down, everything will be fine.”

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The German then turned his attention to his side’s waste in the Lisbon win, despite scoring three goals. It was Diaz’s late goal that gave them a two-goal advantage and some breathing space ahead of the second leg at Anfield. Klopp added: “In the end we should have scored more goals in the first half, we could have scored more goals in the second half, the goalkeeper was probably their best player. He made some really good saves. We won it, two goals ahead, half time, no more no less, let’s move on. Of course we could have scored more goals. We usually score more goals in the situations we’ve had, but we didn’t. I think mostly because of their goalkeeper, glory be to him, and that’s pretty much the story.

“With three goals we could have scored in the last minute and a fourth would have been nice but it’s not dreamland here, it’s half time, we have a better result, a lot better than before and we know more about our opponents. They will try again, they won at Ajax and polished all the results in the group stage so we are aware of the quality and now we have a nice game in between but we will be ready.”