‘Sharpen up’: Phil Thompson says £34m Liverpool player’s passing just wasn’t good enough vs PSG

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Liverpool pinched a 1-0 win against PSG on Wednesday evening as their stellar Champions League campaign continued.

Liverpool dominated the group stage of the Champions League, topping the 32-team table. However, in their first knockout game, they faced an uphill task.

Indeed, PSG were the better team on the night, and if it weren’t for Alisson Becker’s Man of the Match performance, Liverpool would’ve lost this game.

However, a late goal from Harvey Elliott secured the 1-0 win, but the point still stands that the performance was uncharacteristically disjointed.

Speaking on the Official Liverpool Podcast after the game, Phil Thompson has been discussing the Reds’ performance, and he picked out Mohamed Salah’s passing as a point of concern against PSG.

Photo by Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Mohamed Salah’s passing was poor vs PSG

Thompson spoke about Liverpool’s attacking play.

The pundit says that the final ball was lacking for Liverpool far too often, pointing towards Mohamed Salah as a player whose passing was off on the day.

“Don’t you feel, Gareth, that, as you said, just picking up on it, we had quite a few counter-attacks. We just never got it right. You just felt, we get this ball right,” Thompson said.

“It was a couple in the first half, there was certainly a couple in the second half. It was one of the down things on those attacking players, that the choice of pass, and it was there, Mo, a couple of times tonight just got it wrong.

“And he had that one where he could have passed it. He had so much grass to pass the ball in, and it didn’t.So just that we have to sharpen up on, I think. What do you think?

Mohamed Salah passing stats vs PSG

Thompson says that Salah’s passing was lacklustre vs PSG, and he’s not wrong.

Salah is a fantastic creator most of the time – hence why he tops the Premier League’s assist charts.

However, on Wednesday, something just didn’t seem to be clicking with the Egyptian, and his passing stats were rather poor.

Mohamed Salah passing stats vs PSG
22
Pass success rate 86%
Key passes 0
Crosses attempted 2
Successful crosses 0

Salah just couldn’t make much happen against PSG.

Salah has been in Ballon d’Or winning form as of late, but this performance showed that the £34m attacker is only human after all.

Luckily, Liverpool managed to escape with a win, and now, they head to Anfield as favourites to progress to the quarter-finals.

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