Jurgen Klopp has played down concerns over Mohamed Salah’s form after the Liverpool striker endured another evening of frustration.
Salah scored his 24th goal of the season from the spot early on in the Europa League quarter-final second leg at Atalanta with the Reds looking to overturn a 3-0 first-leg deficit on Thursday.
However, the Egyptian missed a glorious chance to double the visitors’ advantage before half-time and faded in influence before being replaced midway through the second half.
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But Klopp has expressed his backing for Salah, who continues to seek full sharpness after being absent for the best part of two months earlier in the year due to a hamstring problem.
“I’m not particularly concerned,” said the Reds boss. “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.”
Liverpool had created several good chances in the first half with Trent Alexander-Arnold impressive on his first start in more than two months before understandably tiring.
And Klopp admitted his team should have done more with their attacking efforts.
“The biggest problem in the second half was that we couldn't keep the tempo,” he 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.”
