Jurgen Klopp rejects Mohamed Salah 'wide' claims after…

Jurgen Klopp rejects Mohamed Salah 'wide' claims after Liverpool's goalless draw with Everton

Jurgen Klopp has rejected claims that a tactical tweak for Mohamed Salah's is impacting his output in front of goal.

The Liverpool forward has scored twice in the Reds' six games so far this term and he again failed to get on the scoresheet as they drew 0-0 with Everton at Goodison Park in the 241st Merseyside derby.

It has been suggested that Salah is generally taking up wider positions this season in an effort to accommodate the arrival of £64m striker Darwin Nunez, but Klopp does not believe that is intentional as he backed the Egyptian to return to scoring ways soon.

Salah was denied by a 95th-minute save from Jordan Pickford as Liverpool pushed for a winner and Klopp does not see a real problem with how the team are looking to get the best out of a player who has been top scorer every season at Anfield since he joined in 2017.

“It’s not more than other seasons," Klopp said. "I'm not sure. We want to have Mo in this position but we have always had him more often in the centre position as well.

"Today especially we wanted to use him a bit more centrally but didn’t have a lot of time to train obviously. We only recovered. We spoke a lot about it, I’m not sure I was clear enough in the first half, we didn’t do exactly what we wanted.

"When Mo dropped or Lucho (Luis Diaz) dropped after two or three passes they were completely free in between the lines because Darwin kept the last line back which was clear presence.

"They like to drop pretty early. But we didn’t do that a lot. I don’t think this season he is too often wide, today in a few moments yes, but in general he could have scored again in the last minute.”

On the result itself, Klopp continued: “Rule number one if you cannot win the derby then don’t lose it. We could have won it today but we could have lost it in a few moments as well. If you count the amount of chances we had and the amount of chances they had then we would have been the deserved winner.

“We had the last chance which was a massive one, we could have won there absolutely. But Alisson had to make two incredible saves and they scored a goal which was disallowed for offside.

“So, it was intense like always. We were ready to fight after a super intense game on Wednesday. We tried to fight and especially in the second half it looked like an end-to-end game because of our set-pieces, we didn’t defend the second balls particularly well.

"We had good set-pieces but we didn’t finish them off. We were slightly too open and they used those moments pretty well but apart from that they didn’t cause us many problems. We had to dig in deep and obviously that’s what we did.

“If we would have played our absolute best football ever on Wednesday night, and maybe we have done that once or twice before ahead of a derby, we would have still arrived here with this kind of game. Nobody should be too surprised now.

"Last year was slightly different as we scored in the right moments. We didn’t do that today and that’s why they could stay in the game. And they are a different team to last year as well, the idea they have is obviously not a bad one. They defend pretty well and their counter-attacks are a real threat.

“There are not a lot of derbies that will be in my book of games which I will watch back again in the future, one or two maybe but the others not because it’s never really outstanding football. It’s a big fight that everyone expects from both teams.

"We fought, didn’t always play extremely well, but we had top chances and didn’t use them. But like I said, if you cannot win the derby, then don’t lose it.”

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