Former Liverpool star identifies attacking faults in Salah and Mane

Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane need additional coaching on some of their decision-making in the final third after it was claimed the attacking duo lose the ball too often.

That’s the verdict of Double-winning Liverpool defender Steve Nicol, who believes the prolific Reds frontmen have become “slightly manic” in the final third this season and need to work on their ball retention a little more.

Salah and Mane have both been a regular source of goals for Liverpool since signing, with the duo sharing the Golden Boot with Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang last season and Egyptian Salah winning the award outright in his first season at the club.

But in a season where much has been written about the relationship between the duo after a tantrum by Mane at Burnley, Nicol claims there is still room for improvement in the frontmen.

And despite Liverpool failing to drop in a point in their seven Premier League matches so far, Nicol told ESPN that he wants to see an improvement from the players.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern, I would say maybe I think Klopp needs to try and do something with particularly Salah and Mane.

“Going forward, they lose the ball too often. It’s one thing to try and go at defenders quickly and try to break quickly.

“But it’s another thing to do it in some sort of… it’s like manic the way they do it.

“If they can just slow it down a little bit, take a little bit more time and think about it a little more then I think the goals will start coming more for those two, if they do that.”

 

 

 

Nicol sees ‘flaw’ in Joel Matip

Nicol also reckons centre-half Joel Matip is something of a chink in Liverpool’s armour, though concedes that the Cameroonian has built up a solid partnership with Virgil van Dijk at the heart of the defence.

The Scot added: “That [understanding with Van Dijk] comes with time.

“They’ve, not just the start of the season but the end of last season, spent a lot of time playing together.

“Again, Matip, I think if there was a flaw in the back it would be around the Matip area, but the last couple of weeks he’s been fantastic.

“So yeah at the back that’s a real good partnership right now.”

 

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