John Aldridge reflects on Liverpool missing out on Marc Guehi to Man City and Mohamed Salah’s imminent return in the second half of his weekly ECHO column
If Marc Guehi was under contract, he costs you £60m. That’s why it doesn’t wash with me if you use the wage he’s reportedly getting at Man City as an excuse for Liverpool not going for him.
You look at the overall package. You’re saving £40m, buying him for £20m now. You’re more than making that back over the next few years, even with the high wage.
I just don’t understand why we haven’t gone for him. We need a new centre back desperately. It’s clear for everyone to see. He was virtually a Liverpool player in the summer. It was all agreed until Palace pulled the plug. So I don’t get it, how we’ve not gone back in for him, when he was a player who wanted to sign.
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If anything happens to Virgil van Dijk now, we’re in a really difficult position. We need another centre-back already.
It’s already light at the back. Ibrahima Konate hasn’t been great, has had his injury problems in the past and is out of contract in the summer. Joe Gomez is injury-prone.
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Even when Giovanni Leoni is back from his ACL, he’s just a kid, he’s just a baby. He’s not even played in the Premier League. That leaves Virgil, who will turn 35 in the summer and have a year left on his contract.
If Guehi is no longer the answer, they better have some good alternatives up their sleeves. And it’s a massive gamble not doing anything now.
For £20m, it was a doable deal to rival Man City and sign Guehi. You would save yourselves £40m. But, for whatever reason, we decided not to do it.
Salah could come back and be unstoppable
Mohamed Salah has had a good Africa Cup of Nations, even if it ended in disappointment. He scored goals and he will hopefully come back to Liverpool high on confidence.
If he comes back with a point to prove, it’s beneficial to everyone. We saw what he was like last season when he was playing for a new contract.
But if it carries on like it has been all season, he won’t do us any good – especially if things aren’t settled with Arne Slot.
But he will want to prove a point after AFCON. Because he couldn’t win it, but also because of what happened in the first half of the season.
When Mo Salah wants to prove a point, he’s unstoppable. He will help us. If he puts a shift in in every game, he can open up defences.
He could have been the difference against Burnley. He would have gobbled up some of those chances.
I just hope he comes back in the right frame of mind and can go on to have a decisive say for us.
Yes, we’re 12 unbeaten since Arne first benched him and he went to AFCON. But how many of those games have been draws?
Mohamed Salah is a match-winner. Let’s hope he can be the man to turn all these stalemates into maximum points, starting with Marseille away.
It’s a game that might actually suit us. They need three points. There will be space. They will be coming at us to win the game.
We won’t see the same 11 robots in this one. That’s what we see in every game. 11 defensive robots, sitting behind the ball.
But this one, it will be a good game, a tough game, but a good game and a good atmosphere. They’re not bad. Hopefully it might be a game that suits us.
Flo can’t do it alone
It was a great goal from Florian Wirtz against Burnley. He’s a great player. But he’s got to go past five players at times.
He’s trying his best. He can get past one or two. But not three. He can’t do it all alone. He needs help from his team-mates. We need more men forward.
He was hurting after Burnley equalised. It should hurt them as much as it hurts the fans.
Sometimes you even think go route one. We need more players in the box when crosses come in, better runs into the box, more players getting forward when we attack. But it’s hard when so many players are behind the ball.
Jeremie Frimpong did well. Put in some great crosses, beat his man, but no-one is getting in at the far post to get on the end of it.
I want to see Curtis Jones get further forward. He can score goals. I’ve seen him since he was a kid. He’s a goalscorer.
Get him in the box and around the box. He should not be deep, getting it off Virgil van Dijk.
But that doesn’t change the fact we should have had enough about us to at least see it out and win 1-0.
