Jurgen Klopp believes it is only a matter of time before Mohamed Salah ends his longest goal drought for three years and described his barren spell as “completely normal”.
Liverpool’s top scorer has gone six games without a goal and has only scored one penalty in 10 matches for his club plus two for Egypt in the last eight weeks.
But Klopp believes he does not need to take Salah aside for a pep talk as he is pleased with the Egyptian’s overall performance levels and expects him to find the net soon.
“It is a completely normal spell Mo is going through,” he said. “I like the game he did against [Manchester] City [in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final] a lot. He did a really good game. It is only a question of time before he will score again. He is unlucky in moments, he was close enough for a couple of times and the moment will definitely come. I am really happy with the performance he showed a few days ago.
“We have had plenty of talks over the time we have worked together and at this specific moment there is no need to talk about the situation, just the normal stuff about what he has to do in the game and all these kind of things.”
While Salah’s goals have been rarities, Sadio Mane has scored four times in his last three starts, including two in the FA Cup semi-final win.
The Senegalese has operated as a striker more since left winger Luis Diaz joined in January, but Klopp denied the signing has spurred him into form.
“I have known Sadio since nearly six years and he never needed any kind of competition to try and be the best version of himself,” he said. “He performed on an incredibly high level consistently. I am not sure bringing in Luis affected that part of his game. It was not the reason for bringing Luis in.”
Salah has scored six goals in his last three games against Manchester United, including a hat-trick in Liverpool’s 5-0 win at Old Trafford in October, and Klopp is anticipating a tougher test in Tuesday’s rematch. “Big game, a massive game, two of the biggest clubs in the world for sure face each other,” he said.
United beat Norwich 3-2 on Saturday to revive their chances of qualifying for the Champions League and Klopp added: “United won the last game and the results from the last game opened the door for them again. They will go for it. It will be an intense 90 minutes.”
