{"id":335066,"date":"2025-12-08T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/335066\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T14:29:07","slug":"champions-league-frank-speaking-salah-not-expected-to-travel-to-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/335066\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League: Frank speaking; Salah not expected to travel to Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Super-sub’ role won’t satisfy Salahpublished at 13:30 GMT<\/p>\n

13:30 GMT<\/p>\n

Tom McCoy
BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n

Mohamed
\nSalah clearly isn\u2019t ready to embrace his new role as a Liverpool benchwarmer \u2013
\nhe\u2019s made it abundantly clear he feels he\u2019s \u201cearned\u201d his status as a regular
\nstarter.<\/p>\n

The forward
\nhas indeed made the vast majority of his 420 appearances \u2013 91% to be precise \u2013 in
\nthe first XI since joining the club in 2017, including over 97% of his minutes.<\/p>\n

While it
\nhas been rare for Salah to be used off the bench, he\u2019s actually performed very
\nwell as a replacement, with his pace and eye for goal particularly effective
\nagainst tiring defences. <\/p>\n

He has scored
\n14 times in 37 appearances as a substitute, equivalent to a goal every 66
\nminutes \u2013 notably better than his record of a goal every 141 minutes when
\nstarting.<\/p>\n

It was as a
\nsecond-half substitute that he scored the Champions League\u2019s fastest hat-trick in 2022, a feat completed in six minutes and 12 seconds against Rangers.<\/p>\n

With Salah
\nnow 33, and Liverpool boasting an embarrassment of riches in attacking
\npositions, there\u2019s an argument that occasionally using him as a \u2018super sub\u2019
\nmight be an effective ploy to preserve his longevity, wear down opponents and
\nmaximise squad depth.<\/p>\n

However,
\nthat can only work with buy-in from the player himself. Given the apparent
\nbreakdown in the relationship between Salah and head coach Arne Slot, it appears
\nunlikely the Egyptian will be happy to see out his Liverpool days on the bench.<\/p>\n

\"Comparison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Super-sub’ role won’t satisfy Salahpublished at 13:30 GMT 13:30 GMT Tom McCoyBBC Sport journalist Mohamed Salah clearly isn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-335066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}