Arne Slot should unleash Mohamed Salah in new Liverpool role that one transfer can unlock

There might be nothing riding on the game from a Liverpool perspective, but all eyes will be on Mohamed Salah later this weekend as the Reds take on Spurs. The Egyptian ensured that was the case with his antics last Saturday against West Ham.

Jürgen Klopp was keen to draw a line under the incident immediately before Salah fanned the flames with his mixed zone comments. Eight days on from the public touchline spat, though, it will be interesting to see whether or not the Liverpool talisman returns to the starting XI. His absence, presumably, was the reason for the falling out.

There is a question mark hanging over Salah to some degree heading into the summer. His contract at Anfield only runs until 2025 and now 31, there is a theory that his rare recent injury and below-par aftermath are the start of a decline. That would be a big leap to make, but there is some rationale behind it.

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Liverpool is not expecting to lose Salah this summer, however, and there is no reason whatsoever to think that he would be any more tempted by the riches of the Saudi Pro League, even if the interest from the Middle East remains a year on from it emerging. Jordan Henderson's ill-advised stint there shows that it is not quite the elite division that it wants to be just yet.

But if he is staying at Liverpool — and therefore signing a new contract to avoid the Reds losing him for nothing — it will be up to Arne Slot, the soon-to-be-confirmed new head coach, to get the best out of him. And as the Klopp argument proved, that is not always easy.

Purely from a sporting perspective, Salah remains hugely influential for Liverpool. He is the leading Reds man this season for goals and assists and while some of those are penalties, he is comfortably the club's most reliable forward. In terms of availability (recent injury aside) and conviction in terms of finding the back of the net, he is strides ahead of the rest.

Salah will finish this season with his lowest Premier League goals return since playing for Chelsea, but that statistic is made a lot more dramatic by leaving out the part that he has still scored 17 times. That is a career-best for most good forwards.

Now in his 30s, Salah is not as explosive as he once was. He is a different kind of player; more of a playmaker. He loves a pass through the opposition defense and has perfected that side of his game. With better finishing from Darwin Núñez, his assist numbers would make that considerably more obvious.

Whatever the metric, Salah ranks at or very near the top for creativity. While he isn't scoring as often as he used to, he is setting up his teammates a lot more often (at least across the season as a whole). Recency bias aside, Salah is still offering a huge amount at the top end of the pitch and the numbers bear that out. No one in the top flight has created as many big chances as him and no one can match his expected assists on a per 90 basis.

Arne Slot is famed in the Eredivisie for loving wingers and while Salah fits that description to some extent, he has never really been a wide player. At his best, and even when below par, he is a lot, lot more than that.

With The Athletic reporting this week that Liverpool could sign another forward this summer, that would make the most sense if it meant Salah playing inside more often. He would be able to create more from there (and probably score more too) without having to try and use the explosive pace to beat a man that isn't necessarily there these days.

With Slot loving pacy, direct wide players and having previously used a 4-2-3-1 formation, someone else — a new signing best deployed off the right rather than forcing Diogo Jota or Cody Gakpo to play there — could take the right wing berth with Salah as a number 10. It wouldn't have to be every game, but it could definitely be an option.