It has been heartening to see Mo Salah return to something like good form now that his decision to leave Liverpool has been made public.
Salah has played like a forward with lead in his boots and a weight on his mind all season but now looks ready to take his leave with something more positive in his short-term memory bank.
Against Everton yesterday and after coming off the bench against PSG last week, Salah was not quite a player transformed but at least the energy and the confidence is back.
As for some of his team-mates, question marks remain and the closer we get to the end of this dismal Liverpool season, the more the need for another mini-rebuild becomes clear.
At the very least it feels as though Liverpool will need another wide forward, a central defender and maybe another right-back.
And what about a goalkeeper? The Brazilian Alisson is 33 and increasingly injury prone. His replacement Giorgi Mamardashvili is improving but not at the same level as others at the very top clubs, where an elite-level keeper is now prioritised.
Salah has played like a forward with lead in his boots and a weight on his mind all season but now looks ready to take his leave with something more positive in his short-term memory bank
While Van Dijk remains a force of nature and the squad’s spiritual leader, he turns 35 in July and is not quite the player he was
Centre half is a priority and a worry at Anfield as Liverpool continue to pay a heavy price for their failure to close a deal for Marc Guehi last August. Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate have run through walls for their club this season and – once the promising young Italian Giovanni Leoni suffered a serious knee injury on his debut – that’s simply because they have had to.
Van Dijk has started every single Premier League game for his club this season while Konate has missed just two. No wonder that at times they have looked shot to pieces. Neither, for example, covered themselves in glory as Everton scored their equaliser yesterday.
Konate revealed yesterday he is closing in on signing a new deal, but while Van Dijk remains a force of nature and the squad’s spiritual leader, he turns 35 in July and is not quite the player he was. At the top level the margins are small and he is now on the wrong side.
So there is a clear problem there, just as there is at right back.
Liverpool have one of the game’s brightest young talents in Conor Bradley but the young Northern Irishman struggles terribly with injuries and has only made 29 league starts at the age of 22. Last summer’s signing Jeremie Frimpong was overlooked yesterday as Curtis Jones was deployed in that position by Arne Slot. Jones had an excellent game.
So that is the size of it for Liverpool as they attempt to move forward. Whether Slot stays or goes – and a comfortable Champions League finish would help him from here – a squad on which so much was spent last summer is going to need more work.
They will receive in the region of £100m for playing in Europe’s big competition again next season and it looks as though they will need every penny.
WIRTZ QUALITY STARTING TO SHOW
Liverpool’s big signing of last summer Alexander Isak was awful against Everton but needs time. The Swede is clearly not match fit and it’s hard to think he would have started had Hugo Ekitike not suffered such a terrible injury last week.
As for Florian Wirtz, improvement continues to come and was on evidence once again in the derby. Much of what the brilliant German does currently gets lost in the greater Liverpool struggle.
Build a better platform for him next season and he will shine.
Improvement continues to come for £116m man Wirtz and was on evidence once again in the derby, although much of what he currently does gets lost in the greater Liverpool struggle
THREE CHEERS FOR SOME HONESTY
The role of the post-match TV interviewer is one of the hardest in the football media and it helps if players and managers actually like you. It’s one of the reasons why former Sky Sports stalwart Geoff Shreeves was so good at it.
Also falling into that category is one-time Barnsley and Middlesbrough forward Jan Age Fjortoft, who is a regular at big Premier League games for the Scandinavian rights holder Viaplay.
It is Fjortoft’s interview with Liverpool’s Jones that features the Liverpudlian lodging some gentle digs into the ribs of Evertonians today.
‘It shows the team that we are and the team that they are,’ said Jones to Fjortoft. ‘They are celebrating that they are two points behind us in one of our worst years.’
Some have called Jones’ words disrespectful. I call them interesting and honest.
Meanwhile, Erling Haaland is chastised on air by Sky Sports for dropping an F-Bomb after Manchester City’s big win against Arsenal. Hardly ideal, for sure, but hardly the crime of the sporting century either.
So many post-match interviews are anodyne in the extreme. We either want our sports stars to be themselves and tell us what they really feel… or we don’t.
EVERTON LOSING… BUT ALSO WINNING
It wasn’t the result that Everton wanted and, despite an encouraging performance, they need to find a way to make the most of the atmosphere generated at their fabulous new stadium.
David Moyes’ team have only won six of 17 home games in the Premier League and also went out of the FA Cup – on penalties to Sunderland – on their own patch.
At least they can be satisfied they have managed to transfer the noise and passion of matchday from Goodison Park down to the dock. It really was terrific yesterday and the opening siren to their ‘Z Cars’ entry music remains one of the most powerful in sport.
In terms of the best atmospheres in the Premier League (this season at least) here are my top three: Elland Road, St James Park, Hill Dickinson.
At least Everton can be satisfied they have managed to transfer the noise and passion of matchday from Goodison Park down to the dock at Hill Dickinson Stadium
HAS THE NUMBER NINE EXPERIMENT WORKED?
They didn’t want for emotion at the Etihad Stadium as City squeaked past Arsenal with two goals of outstanding quality.
Haaland’s battle with Arsenal defender Gabriel was fascinating, even though the Brazilian shouldn’t have been allowed to see out the game. A headbutt is a headbutt regardless of how the chap on the receiving end of it reacts.
Haaland now has 34 goals to his name this season which is a fabulous return once again for a player about whom some of our big-name experts remain stubbornly unconvinced.
At the start of the season, we talked about the return of the big number nine to English football as Benjamin Sesko, Viktor Gyokeres, Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Liam Delap and Nick Woltemade all arrived at big Premier League clubs.
Haaland currently has more than double the total of all of them apart from Gyokeres, who has eighteen yet wasn’t trusted to start the game for Arsenal yesterday.
Proof perhaps that it’s not always about who you buy but how you manage to use them.
THE END OF SILVA SERVICE
Still no movement on a new contract for Marco Silva at Fulham and it was interesting to see Thomas Frank in the stands as his old club Brentford drew 0-0 with their west London neighbours.
Silva has been a force for good at Fulham and they now sit as an established Premier League club.
But a current 12th placed position following finishes of 11th, 13th and 10th maybe starts to suggest a plateau.
Maybe it’s time to push on in a different way and Frank for Fulham next season wouldn’t be the wildest suggestion in the world.
He would certainly be slightly easier to work with.
Frank was in the stands as his old club Brentford drew with 0-0 with Fulham – and it certainly wouldn’t be wild to suggest Frank could be next in line to take over from Silva at the Cottage
FIFTY AND COUNTING
It will be 50 days until the start of the World Cup on Wednesday so here are this weekend’s movers and shakers in terms of Thomas Tuchel’s squad.
Going up: Aston Villa duo Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins (I still think Watkins will go to America) and Cole Palmer who managed to rise above the chaos at Chelsea to be his team’s best player in defeat to Manchester United.
Going down: Dominic Solanke. He just isn’t really good enough.
Outside bet: What more does Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall need to do for Tuchel to notice him?
QUALITY DOESN’T DIE
At Villa Park it was an uncomfortable ten minutes for Jadon Sancho who gave the ball away for two Sunderland goals after coming on in the 80th minute.
It seems incredible that Sancho was a key part of Gareth Southgate’s squad when England reached the final of Euro 2020 at Wembley.
What is it about Sancho and his fellow Manchester United cast-off Alejandro Garnacho that makes them so uneasy on the eye these days? It’s as though you can see their lack of confidence and purpose just by looking at them.
At least Sancho can look across the Villa dressing room and see evidence that good players can recover from lean spells. The presence of Ross Barkley – a really talented forward – in Unai Emery’s team is evidence of that.
DANSO SUMS UP SPURS PROBLEMS
In North London, Tottenham continue to feel the burn of poor judgement in the transfer market.
In danger of being cut adrift in the relegation zone – especially if West Ham win at Crystal Palace tonight – the point they took against Brighton on Saturday evening was the very most they deserved and only the second out of the 24 that have been available since Spurs sacked Frank in mid-February.
Whether Frank could have done better with more time (possibly not) is an interesting point but more than anything the decline of last season’s Europa League winners speaks of a squad that is simply not fit for purpose.
Too much pressure has been left on the shoulders of young talented players like Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall by senior pros who have not proved to be anywhere near good enough.
Conor Gallagher is one example while Saturday’s fall guy Kevin Danso is a case in point. The Austrian central defender was signed on loan from Lens in the January window of 2025 and made nine Premier League starts for a team that was plummeting down the table under Ange Postecoglou.
Saturday’s fall guy Danso made nine Premier League starts for a team that was plummeting down the table under Ange Postecoglou and yet was still signed for £20m in the summer
Still, someone at Spurs thought it evidence enough to sign the 27-year-old permanently for £20m in the summer. Danso is an understudy to Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero but still needs to be good enough when called upon. Overall, he hasn’t been.
Left on the bench as Tottenham imploded once again on Saturday were another defender Radu Dragusin (£25m), centre forward Richarlison (£60m) and holding player Joao Palhinha (on loan from Bayern Munich).
If your senior players can’t be relied upon when you are desperate then you really are in trouble.
GORDON MAY NOT HAVE DONE ENOUGH
It feels like it will be a big summer in Newcastle and not in a good way.
Eddie Howe, Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon. I wouldn’t put a heap of money on any of them being there next season.
Reports that Gordon may wish to leave will not surprise anyone familiar with a talented player’s brief interest in a move to Liverpool two summers ago.
The 25-year-old is a modern day rarity in the Premier League, a straight line runner with the ability to scare defenders.
He scored six Premier League goals last season, though, and the same number so far this time round.
Are they the kind of numbers to get the really big clubs interested?
If he isn’t careful he will end up at Chelsea.
BERLIN MOVE FEELS LIKE PR
Much has been made in Germany of the promotion to first team management duties at Union Berlin of Marie-Louisa Eta, the first female coach to ever take over at a club in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
Eta’s team lost their first game with the 34-year-old in charge against Wolfsburg at the weekend, leading to some predictably gruesome social media trolling.
But what is more pertinent than the views of the idiots with keyboards is the fact that it has already been decided that Eta will assume control of Union’s women’s team in the summer.
If the club really wanted to look beyond the gender of their head coach then they would have been a little more open-minded about who gets the big job in the summer.
As it is, Eta was ruled out before she had even started. Which makes the whole thing feel a little too much like a PR opportunity grabbed with both hands.
Eta’s Union Berlin team lost their first game with the 34-year-old in charge against Wolfsburg at the weekend, leading to some predictably gruesome social media trolling
WEDNESDAY FIGHT NOT OVER
Sheffield Wednesday’s draw with Charlton means that it’s now more than a calendar year since the Owls won at home and sadly that’s a Football League record.
Still, there were more than 25,000 at Hillsborough on Saturday which proves beyond doubt that an affiliation and affection for a football club goes far beyond seeing a team win.
Having been in administration since October, Wednesday have been labouring under the weight of an 18-point deduction.
They now have three games left to turn a -3 tally into something with a ‘plus’ next to it.
Given the number of players they have lost this season, that would be an achievement in itself.
TIME TO TWEAK THE PLAY-OFF SYSTEM
The final day drama we all wanted in the National League is on.
Rochdale’s 99th minute winner at Braintree Town means that they will host York for the final regulation game of the season this weekend with the winner taking the one automatic promotion spot.
Whoever slips into the play-offs will face a side such as Forest Green or Southend who will have finished in the region of 30 points behind them.
All of which makes me harden my view that play-offs need a tweak.
Whoever finishes one place outside the automatic spots really should go straight to the final with four others playing off for the right to meet them there.
