Mané delivers again as Salah minutes managed for Liverpool

Mohamed Salah’s (£13.0m) first blank of the season caused frustration even as Liverpool beat Leicester in Saturday’s early kick-off.

Sadio Mané (£9.9m) added his fourth goal of the season but the Reds conceded for the first time in 2018/19.

We’ve got all the Fantasy Premier League talking points from the King Power Stadium.

READ NEXT: Chelsea showing FPL consistency as Brighton boss clarifies penalty takers

LEICESTER CITY 1-2 LIVERPOOL

• Goals: Rachid Ghezzal (£5.3m) | Sadio Mané (£9.9m), Roberto Firmino (£9.5m)
• Assists: James Maddison (£6.5m) | Andrew Robertson (£6.1m), James Milner (£5.6m)

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp sowed the seeds for the rotation to come in his side’s 2-1 win over Leicester City on Saturday lunchtime. The German had revealed in his most recent press conference that unchanged line-ups would soon become a thing of the past for Liverpool, especially with some big European games coming up. Klopp stayed true to his word at the King Power Stadium, although he did only make one change to the starting line-up. That saw Naby Keita (£7.5m) drop to the bench and allowed Jordan Henderson (£5.4m) his first start of the campaign, a switch Klopp said before the game was because of what he had seen in the training ground in the week.

While the team sheet caused little pain for Fantasy managers, Klopp’s decisions later in the match were cause for some concern. With Liverpool only one goal ahead and a little on the ropes facing a Leicester fightback, he took off talismanic figure Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) in the 70th minute and replaced him with Xherdan Shaqiri (£7.2m). While it hardly suggests the Egyptian won’t start against Spurs in Gameweek 5, it does imply that Klopp will start limiting the minutes of his best players. That in and of itself is not too much of a surprise, but given his pedigree, it had been assumed that if any of Liverpool’s front three would be pulled off with 20 minutes left it would either be Roberto Firmino (£9.5m) or Sadio Mané (£9.9m), not Salah.

The Senegalese forward pulled away further clear of Salah in terms of FPL points, which will only increase his appeal in the transfer market ahead of Gameweek 5. In fact, a first blank of the campaign and managed minutes at a crucial time in the match could even lead to some sales for Salah. However, a quick look at the underlying numbers for the two players definitely suggests the Egyptian has been unlucky not to have scored more this season.

Salah remains ahead for total shots, efforts in the box and shots on target too. Mané leads the way when it comes to accuracy though, besting Salah’s 36 percent with a 60 percent of his own. Yes, he should have scored the easy chance presented to him early in this game but, with the number of shots he is having and chances he is creating, Salah is still playing like a player who can explode at any moment.

Delivering his third goal involvement of the season was James Milner (£5.6m), who continues to provide real value in the mid-range midfield bracket. His role in set pieces allowed him to put up the assist for Firmino’s first goal of the campaign and actually drew Milner level for Premier League assists with one David Beckham, the joint seventh best of all time. Given that the former Manchester City man also tops the Liverpool pecking order for penalties and has started every league match so far, he could offer an alternative option for Fantasy managers looking to save money on their Liverpool contingent.

Meanwhile, Andrew Robertson (£6.1m) demonstrated once again that he is the best Liverpool defender to own, as he registered his second assist of the campaign. It was another goal involvement that stemmed from his very advanced position. The only Liverpool player to record more penalty boxes touches in the match were the front three of Salah, Mané and Firmino.

However, Robertson was denied a fourth successive clean sheet by some sloppy play by goalkeeper Alisson (£5.6m). There are no doubts that the Brazilian has been one of the key reasons for the Reds’ defensive strength so far this season. But he was very much at fault for the first goal conceded by his team in 2018/19. After receiving a Virgil van Dijk (£6.0m) back-pass, he tried a repeat of the piece of skill he pulled off against Brighton last week, this time in his own penalty box. That allowed himself to be closed down by Kelechi Iheanacho (£6.0m). The Nigerian’s cross into the middle was deflected onto Rachid Ghezzal (£5.3m) by the foot of James Maddison (£6.5m) and the Algerian fired into an empty net.

Liverpool looked just as defensively solid as they had done in every match prior to this one, with Joe Gomez (£5.0m) particularly impressing alongside van Dijk. So that makes it more disappointing that an error cost them the clean sheet. However, it sounds like all involved will be working against making sure it doesn’t happen again. Do remember that Klopp did admit that even when Alisson pulled off that piece of skill under pressure against Brighton, he still didn’t like it.

“Last week he did what he did and the way everyone spoke about it, it was clear he’d concede a goal one day. I’m sure Gomez and Virgil for sure could have cleared the situation. But for some reason, Alisson didn’t clear it and dribbled. We have to learn how to use Alisson at the right moment. Not on a dry pitch not hard enough. Don’t do it at those moments. It was a mistake from Alisson, no goalkeeper should dribble in this occasion. But his reaction was good, we still used him in better situations.” – Jurgen Klopp

“I made a mistake reading the play. I didn’t get a very good pass. We talked about that in the dressing room and I spoke to Virgil. It wasn’t a good pass but I could have just kicked it long. I wanted to keep playing and keep the possession. Now everyone is going to analyse that. I’m not going to be stupid and make the same mistake. We have to learn from our mistakes. It is part of my game (playing with the ball at his feet) but I am not going to be arrogant to stand here and say I’m going to keep doing it. We have to learn from our mistakes.” – Alisson Becker

Maddison had been somewhat overlooked by Fantasy managers in spite of his Gameweek 2 goal against Wolves, mainly on account of some uninspiring underlying statistics. However, the former Norwich City man may have started to up his game a little after he came out of Saturday’s lunch-time with the highest shot count. He even registered more than Salah. Only one of those efforts was in the penalty box but Maddison also recorded the same number of touches in that area of the pitch as the Egyptian. There was an element of luck about his assist for Ghezzal’s goal but he may be slowly working towards performances that can sustain his output.

However, the prospects of Demarai Gray (£5.5m) took a turn for the worse after he was handed an opportunity for increased attacking potential. He was chosen to lead the line instead of Iheanacho in the final game of Jamie Vardy’s (£8.9m) suspension but did not offer much in that position. The fact that Maddison registered more efforts than him despite playing in a deeper position offers little encouragement to Gray. Nor will the fact that Iheanacho managed the same number of touches in the penalty area in 29 minutes as Gray could muster in 76.

LEICESTER CITY XI (4-4-1-1): Schmeichel; Chilwell, Morgan, Maguire, Pereira, Ghezzal, Ndidi, Mendy, Albrighton (Iheanacho 61’); Maddison (Amartey 83’); Gray (Okazaki 76’).

LIVERPOOL XI (4-3-3): Alisson; Robertson, Van Dijk, Gomez, Alexander-Arnold (Matip 89’): Henderson (Keita 71’), Wijnaldum, Milner; Salah (Shaqiri 71’), Firmino, Mane

READ NEXT: Chelsea showing FPL consistency as Brighton boss clarifies penalty takers

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