It is less than four months since Mohamed Salah compared a status as a substitute to being thrown under the bus. Now he was in effect substituting himself, the footballer who invariably wants to play 90 minutes curtailing his contribution after 73. He “felt something”, Arne Slot reported vaguely, though he did not sound overly concerned.
Even without finishing Liverpool’s rout of Galatasaray, Salah looked far from finished; in itself, a contrast from some of his displays this season. His statistics were season highs: seven shots, six on target. He had not enjoyed as many attempts in a match for almost a year, since a trip to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Leicester. He had not had as many on target for almost four years, since the 2022 Champions League final, when he encountered a heroic display of resistance from Thibaut Courtois.
