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Salah Masterclass
Remember, if you can, back to the summer of 2021. Buried beneath the Euro tournament and speculation aroudn whether Messi would or would not leave Barcelona was speculation of if Mohamed Salah had a future in Merseyside.
All this was kickstarted by comments from former Liverpool keeper David James, stating it was imperative for his former side to sell Salah this summer. The Egyptian’s contract runs until 2023 and he had been dragging his heels to sign a new deal right away. These comments jumpstarted discourse of how Liverpool could reinvest the resulting revenue boost to improve the squad, or even pursuade Paris Saint-Germain to sell Kylian Mbappé to them.
Then of course you have the large contingency of soccer fans who have let the Fifa video games fool them into thinking any player close to the age of 30 is washed andthe club should move on from them.
Salah is setting all that talk by the wayside — Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema are really the only other players on the planet you could argue are anywhere near having as good a season as the Liverpool winger. Another weekend, another Salah masterclass.
He fluidly and effortlessly implemented a scorched earth policy on Watford’s left side. It was one of those matches for Danny Rose that likely left him reconsidering his career path — marked for death early, getting bodied by Salah before supplying Sadio Mane with a sublime early cross assist with the outside of his boot.
Salah’s goal though… one man now has two serious candidates for goal of the season in his last three matches. This one — a fine example of his close control and his pinpoint finishing from tough angles.
Imagine still thinking Liverpool should off Salah right now, whose seven goals through eight matches puts him on pace to slightly surpass his 32-goal Premier League season in his first year with Liverpool. So far in the season, Salah’s seven goals lead the Premier League and are tied for second amond Europe’s top five leagues. He also paces the Premier League with 15 shots on target (the next closest players have 11).
He’s proving David James wrong. Dead wrong. James also noted that Liverpool play better without him — that Liverpool rely on him. The problem with that statement is, yes, Liverpool relied on him last year, but A) they had to with all their injuries in defense forcing the Reds to score more per match to stay afloat, and B) you should rely on your best players. Your other players need to step up when called upon, but If you have one of the world’s best, you should lean on him. He makes his teammates, and his team as a whole, better.
Ndombele (Finally) Shows Up
There is a stark line of demarcation in the public perception of Tanguy Ncombele. He tantalizes just as many people as he frustrates.
It’s not hard to see why. He’s an exciting midfielder who splits lines with the ball at his feet and uses his elite body control to retain possession during cruching challenges. On the other hand, he hasn’t kicked on as many would have liked and can barely seem to get past the 65-minute mark without looking gassed and getting subbed off. Despite starting 28 of the 33 Premier League matches he played in during the 2020/21 season (fifth on the squad in starts), he was 13th in minutes per match played, with 63.
The impossible happened in the match against Newcastle though… he played a full 90 minutes. The heavens opened, the angels sang, and Ndombele called upon enough ATP in his leg muscles to trudge through the match.
That match was Ndombele at his bullish best — what he can be at his apex. Yes, he scored a fantastic goal for the opener, but it was his nose-to-the grindstone work elsewhere which made an imprint on the match. 92% passing accuracy, four tackles, 4/9 dribbles completed, nine touches inside the Newcastle box, eleven duels won… he was a nuisance the entire match.
Much of this has to do with the role he plays in the current Spurs formation vs. what Spurs’ approach was during their three-match slump earlier in the season.
Now that Nuno Espirito Santo has abnandoned the 4-3-3 which required Ndombele to cover a lot of ground, Ndombele has a double pivot behind him of Oliver Skipp and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg to do much of the defensive dirty work. Tanguy likely won’t ever be a player you can count on to consistently play 90 minutes full of defensive effort each time out. If you can play to his strengths, have him focus on pressing from the front, and cut down on the amount of surface area he needs to cover, it will only help his energy on the ball.
More of this kind of performance please!
Lackadaisical Manchester United
When United are good, they’re great. When they’re bad, they’re abysmal. Somewhere in between those two are performances dotted with individual moments of brilliance to help United to squeak out results, but against Leicester those individual performances sunk the team.
The most obvious culprit was a half-fit Harry Maguire, who likely should not have played, much less get the start. That’s on Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer. Still, Maguire had a firm hand in each of the four goals Leicester scored on the day.
Pickpocketed on the first. Played Söyüncü onside for the second. Lost his man on the third and fourth. Maguire was put in a bad situation, and he played, well, badly. Imagine that.
No one else really covered themselves in glory, except for maybe Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford during his short appearance. Paul Pogba ran about the pitch for the entirety of the match accomplishing nothing but fouling players here and there.
Ronaldo’s match was more shocking. No positional awareness, bad touches, absolutely lifeless shooting and poor focus late in the match to not follow through on a header because he though a Leicester player was going to get to it first… very much unlike him It’s simple to say he just had a bad day, and while that may be true to an extent and he certainly brings many amazing/elite qualities, he isn’t solving United’s well-documented buildup problem, and he’s actually creating another one: no pressure in the attacking third.
He only has attempted 17 pressures so far in the Premier League season and been successful on three of them. Compare that to other big strikers like Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Roberto Firmino, who all have attempted between 43 and 96 per FbRef. Successful teams nowadays press from the front, at least to some degree in part due to the emergence of teams building out from the back. And although pressing is so much more than barnstorming the ball carrier, watching Ronaldo play, he doesn’t really make an impact in that area.
But while he’s certainly the most notable Red Devil, he’s not the problem with United. The team just feels like a bunch of individuals. I won’t harp on OGS’s apparent lack of a plan, because most everyone with access to a keyboard has touched on that recently. I will say though that the amount of goals the squad score that can really be chalked up to absurd individual skill is much higher than that of other teams. Will that win you points? Absolutely, can that reliance on moments hurt you when the individuals aren’t firing? You bet. ◙
[All stats via FbRef, WhoScored, Transfermarkt, Understat, and Squawka]
Premier League Team Of The Week
Three Yellow Cards 