Salah relies on penalties again as Brighton keep things tight

Mohamed Salah (13.4m) owners were perhaps fortunate to get an attacking return against Brighton in Gameweek 22.

The Egyptian’s role in penalties led to his 14th league goal of the season but it was a gritty performance from Liverpool who were made to work hard by their hosts.

Salah’s performance and the continuing success of the Reds’ defence is the focus of this latest Scout Notes article.

Brighton 0-1 Liverpool

Goals: Mohamed Salah (£13.3m)

Assists: None

Salah owners have to be grateful for James Milner‘s (£5.6m) continued absence from the Liverpool first XI after the Egyptian’s latest Premier League goal. He has recently assumed penalty-taking duties from the Englishman, who has made just five top-flight appearances since Gameweek 15. If it wasn’t for the fact he was fouled in the box or his role in taking spot kicks, he might have blanked against Brighton as Liverpool were largely forced to labour to victory. While penalties admittedly play a big part in the appeal of Fantasy assets, owners want to be relying on them exclusively for attacking returns. Accordingly, the fact that all of Salah’s last three Premier League strikes have come from the penalty spot will be of some concern.

This is where one of the lesser-known statistics in the Members Area comes in useful to truly assess Salah’s impact at the Amex Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The Egyptian was top of the match for shots in the box, although of course one of those was his spot kick. He was also top for expected goals too (1.25). However, when we analyse the ‘xG non penalty’ statistic, which removes penalty kicks from the data, we see that Salah falls to 0.46, indicating that he was highly unlikely to score from open play against Brighton, even though he was used in the centre-forward’s role again.

It was a game that we certainly expected to be tight, considering the defensive form the Seagulls had been in recently. In the four league matches prior to Gameweek 22, Chris Hughton’s men ranked joint best for big chances conceded, only Manchester City and Chelsea allowing fewer penalty box shots in that time too. That led to Brighton being able to keep Liverpool largely contained and, as we have already seen, limit Salah’s goal threat in open play. If the Reds come up against a similar defence again in the future, and Salah is still largely relying on penalties, that might count against him. However, the fact that he is still capable of winning penalties is definitely a good thing, as mentioned by Jurgen Klopp after the match.

“It was a brilliant situation. It makes sense for a striker to go dribbling in the box because it’s difficult for the defender to defend it clear. He was in a brilliant position in that moment – if he could shoot, for sure it was a big chance as well. That’s cool.” – Jurgen Klopp

After impressing statistically in the last two weeks, Roberto Firmino (£9.2m), returning to a deeper number 10 role had just one effort in the Brighton penalty box, while Sadio Mané (£9.5m) registered the same number. So while there are slight worries about Salah’s recent reliance on penalties, he is still comfortably the best Liverpool attacking option.

“Sadio had moments, Bobby always. We speak about maturity after the 1-0 but how they defend then, if you see it in their face – how Bobby is talking to everybody, bringing Sadio into position and all that – that’s the massive difference. That’s really cool. The boys worked really hard and deserved these three points, I think, absolutely.” – Jurgen Klopp

Despite less than an ideal injury situation, Liverpool’s defence was still able to record a 13th clean sheet of the campaign. There was mixed news ahead of kick-off as midfielder Fabinho (£5.5m) was named alongside Virgil van Dijk (£6.4m) at centre-back, while Joel Matip (£4.9m) was named on the bench, suggesting he’ll be back in the starting line-up soon. However, despite some initial concerns, it turned out that Fabinho was more than capable of playing at the heart of defence, having done so for Monaco and for Brazil in the past. It just goes to show the tremendous defensive versatility currently present in this Liverpool squad. Great news for owners of options such as Andrew Robertson (£6.6m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£5.2m), as it seems very few outside factors are capable of damaging the Liverpool defence.

“(Fabinho) is a brilliant player and I was happy he could play today. It’s not that Brighton had one attack after the other – we had the ball most of the time so it makes sense to have a good footballer in that position. Brighton tried a little bit to bring the long balls to Murray and around him, which they did, by the way, against Joe Gomez in the home game as well. But he did well in these situations and with the ball. He has a defending brain and can do that in different positions. It’s good.” – Jurgen Klopp

There were some worried Alexander-Arnold owners in the moments before kick-off as he reportedly injured himself in the warm-up. However, he was able to shake off the knock and play the full 90 minutes, banking six points for his owners.

“It was the last situation in the warm-up, I think he stepped on the ball – I didn’t see the situation, I only saw him going down. Immediately [you see] Trent on the ground, he’s a hard boy so that’s not a good sign. Then the Doc came and [said it was] something with the ankle. It was pretty painful. He made the sprints but I didn’t like the way he made them because when he slowed down, I thought it looked a bit like limping so I thought it didn’t look good. On the way to the dressing room, he told me the pain was away, had gone, then the Doc made a little treatment. Then he said pain-wise, it’s good now and should be OK, made a strapping [for it] and [he could] go out. I don’t know exactly what it was and I hope it was absolutely nothing; it was not nothing because it was really painful, but I hope it will not take long until he doesn’t feel it anymore.” – Jurgen Klopp

David Button (£4.0m) continues to hold down his starting place in the Brighton team with Mathew Ryan (£4.4m) still away at the Asian Cup with Australia. In front of him, the back-four was largely unchanged, apart from Gaëtan Bong (£4.4m) making his first start at left-back since Gameweek 12 with Bernardo (£4.2m) ruled out.

In front of that, there was a change to Chris Hughton’s usual shape as he opted for a 4-5-1 in favour of 4-4-1-1, largely to contain Liverpool as much as he could. Jurgen Locadia (£5.3m) kept his place on the left, Solly March (£5.0m) on the right, and Dale Stephens (£4.4m), Davy Pröpper (£4.8m) and Pascal Groß (£6.7m) across the middle. Meanwhile, Glenn Murray (£6.3m) lead the Brighton line on his own. Given the aforementioned data, it seems it was a tactic that had some success.

“We had to defend very well against a few of their moments. I thought we had a couple of good opportunities. We gave Liverpool a very good, hard-fought game. If you play open and expansive against these you go 2-0 down or 3-0 down. I thought the tactics were right against the best team in the country.” – Chris Hughton

Brighton XI (4-5-1): Button; Bong, Dunk, Duffy, Montoya; Locadia, Pröpper, Stephens, Groß (Kayal 79′), March (Knockaert 66′); Murray (Andone 66′).

Liverpool XI (4-2-3-1): Alisson; Robertson, van Dijk, Fabinho, Alexander-Arnold; Henderson, Wijnaldum; Mané (Keita 90′), Firmino, Shaqiri (Milner 72′); Salah (Origi 90+4′).

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