He believes the Egyptian star should be benched for now because he isn’t helping enough in defence.
Wayne Rooney has advised Arne Slot to make a tough call to get Liverpool back on track. The former England and Manchester United striker has suggested dropping Mohamed Salah from Liverpool’s starting XI.
Things have not been going well for Liverpool on the pitch. After a 3-0 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, the defending Premier League champions have fallen to 11th place. They are now 11 points behind leaders Arsenal, who sit on 29 points.
Slot’s side have lost six of their last seven Premier League matches. In their last two games, they failed to score and conceded six goals. Naturally, Salah has no goals or assists during this period, but on The Wayne Rooney Show, Rooney highlighted a different issue with the forward.
“Salah isn’t doing anything to help them defensively. If you’re a young player coming in, if you’re sitting on the bench and you see players not running… I know he’s a club legend and everything he has done for the club—but if you’re on the bench, what message does that send when you see a teammate not tracking back and still starting every week?”
Rooney believes things won’t improve if this continues. In his view, only a bold decision from Slot can help Liverpool regain their rhythm.
“If I were Arne Slot, I would make a bold decision that would affect everyone else in the team. When you’re not winning, you need to tighten things up so you’re difficult to beat.”
“I think that’s exactly the phase they are going through now. I’m 100 percent sure he (Slot) needs to make a decision and tighten the team up, make them hard to beat, and make sure every player runs back to defend. Once they start winning again, he can bring him back, and hopefully by then he’ll be running more to help defensively. I think it will definitely have an impact on the team.”
