While its all good on paper, it won't be healthy on the player in the long run...confidence lost, drawing fouls also tends to lead to more potential injuries. We'll lose one of our talisman if he doesn't ride through this storm. Salah is a player who feeds on confidence and i think the reason we are seeing his recent performances is because of this. It got bad to a certain point earlier this season that he struggled getting past a man mark throughout a game.
I'm not a fan of his but i think he has great ability and it can even be built upon further. Not many would accept such a position of taking one for the team repeatedly (are we showing him the door by doing so?).
I'm not saying whatever that is done tactically is right or wrong, just throwing this out as a point of discussion.
I guess it is the learning curve to become a great player.
Messi is taking the heat for every shot he misses till he no feeling liao.
If I recalled correctly, Salah only blossomed during the second half of his 1st season.
He have his hit and misses during his 1st season.
Just that we dun recall he also missed some of his clear cut chances.
He is able to get into the zone and scored cos he was relaxed and there was no issue even if he misses.
And he was less selfish in passing the ball to Mr F and Mane for them to score.
After what he achieved in 1st season, the pressure is on him and there are more expectations for him to score as most of the balls will be pass to him.
So, he is under more heat if he misses.
And he is also setting himself more KPI to score more and he only got one aim when he get the ball which is to hit the goal mouth.
And he want to win the golden boot again.
Which is why he became more selfish during the 1st half of last season.
He sorted out his thinking at mid season when he start to assist.
And his bottleneck of goal was broken.
Somehow, he is back to aiming at his scoring KPI this season.
The harder he tried, the more he miss.
I observed that Mr F and Mane do not really chiong along with Salah at times since they already know he will not pass to them.
Unfortunately, this is something that he have figure it out himself.
I believe he is in the process of changing with the assist that he gave Keita.
So, his goal will come when he is more relaxed and more willing to GIVE.
This is the MOST important lesson that he MUST learn.
The above comments is just my shallow take on Salah.
As I mentioned below, it takes a lot more to be a great player.
Or else he will forever be stuck at being GOOD.