Jurgen Klopp responds to Mo Salah fears after Liverpool’s Europa League exit

Mo Salah scored the only goal of the game as Liverpool beat Atalanta in the second leg – but they failed to progress in the Europa League after they were unable to add to the Egyptian’s penalty

Jurgen Klopp is not concerned over Mohamed Salah’s form following Liverpool’s Europa League exit on Thursday night.

The Anfield boss refused to make a ‘big story’ of the Egyptian forward’s outing after a difficult night against Atalanta, despite getting on the scoresheet. Salah comfortably dispatched a penalty as Liverpool won 1-0 at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia, but were knocked out of the Europa League following the Serie A side’s 3-0 win at Anfield a week ago.

Salah missed a big chance to further narrow Liverpool’s disadvantage and was replaced during the second-half despite Klopp’s side requiring a number of goals.

The 31-year-old has not shown all of his customary sharpness since returning from the hamstring injury which kept him out of action earlier this year. Having said that, the Liverpool star has still regularly found the net on his way to 24 goals this season.

“I’m not particularly concerned,” said Klopp. “That’s what strikers do. That’s how it it is. We have to go through it, he has to go through it. He is one of most experienced players in the squad. That’s pretty much all.

“It’s not that Mo didn’t miss chances before in his life, that’s part of the game. The penalty was super convincing, a super penalty then the next chance that was unlucky, but it’s not the first time has has missed chances like that. I won’t make a big story of it. I’m not particularly concerned.”

Klopp did admit that his side needed to create more chances against Atalanta, however. The Premier League side managed just 10 efforts at goal despite holding 70 per cent of possession in the Europa League second leg.

“The biggest problem in the second half was that we couldn’t keep the tempo,” the Germ coach said. “You saw Trent, a player we didn’t have for a while. As long as he was fresh together with Macca he set the tempo and rhythm but was running out of gas and Macca had to go through this game and the way he did it was absolutely insane.

“We can keep this kind of level usually a bit longer. I think tonight when we were really in the game we were difficult to play and in other moment we were easy to defend.

“We didn’t have enough chances. We have to create a little bit more than we did in the first half already as it’s clear you need a result to help destabilise the opponent and if you have a second goal it’s a tricky one as the next goal is extra time but we didn’t get to that point and we will never really know how that would have looked. If you don’t deserve it, it’s all good.”