I thought his movement was better but his touch was still terrible and he should have been subbed much earlier. Btw why would his confidence be low, is it because of all his awards?
His touch was good. Gave a lot of passes on the first touch, lots of ''one two's'' near the area, received passes and put himself in space with his touch. It was his finishing that was bad, be it in terms of scoring or delivering the last pass like we saw with his lobbed pass for Firmino.
However, I didn't see anything much better from Mane or Firmino during the 1st half (which was the bulk of Salah's playing time today). The only player to actually put himself in scoring situations during that time was Salah. Had he been clinical we might had left for the dressing room with a 2-1 lead at halftime and we'd all be talking about how genius he is. He's only being judged with the ''I scored 40+ goals last season'' glasses.
If we apply the same logic to Mane or Firmino then what gives? Mane did not score and actually did not put himself in scoring positions or create as much Salah did? Should've benched him after the first 20 minutes?
To answer your question: I don't know if it's a lack of confidence or just putting too much pressure on himself, but he is slowly getting out of it. I think it's mostly the FA thing that had him a bit less focused and frustrated when things didn't go his way on the pitch, but he is smiling again and playing much better football. Seems like a pretty calm guy that is not used to find himself in the middle of bull**** like that so it must've been quite the ride for him.
At the end of the day, if he ends this season with 20 goals then who are we to criticize? That was everybody's expectation of the lad and it's not like we could name a lot of RW's who score 30+ a season every season.
Substitution could've been Mane or even Firmino for all I care. They were both either playing at about the same level he was playing or less its just that Salah is somehow expected to score on every chance he gets. I'm confident he is improving tho.
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