Mohamed Salah truth at Liverpool emerges as 'conspiracy' talk addressed

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And one incident at Anfield on Saturday afternoon brought into sharp focus one curious circumstance that has followed Liverpool around for the best part of five years - and could now have been ended for good.The naked eye suspected the penalty awarded when Mohamed Salah was sent tumbling by Brennan Johnson was a questionable call, so there was little surprise when it was chalked off after a VAR check deduced a fine tackle from the Crystal Palace forward.FOLLOW OUR LIVERPOOL FC FACEBOOK PAGE! All the latest news and analysis from Anfield on the Liverpool Echo's dedicated LFC Facebook pageBut the overturn begged a question - has Salah not been getting many penalties of late?There was one in the FA Cup against Brighton in February.

Since Salah joined in the summer of 2017, Liverpool have been awarded 82 penalties. For some context, in that latter period Luis Diaz won five, Diogo Jota four and Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai three each.Indeed, since winning and then missing from the spot at Leicester City in December 2021, the only one of 29 Premier League penalties awarded to Liverpool that has been given for a foul on Salah was in the 3-1 home win over West Ham United back in September 2023.Given in that time period the Egyptian has scored 80 league goals and provided 50 assists, it stands to reason he may have been in the penalty area quite a bit.

But, after earning plentiful spot kicks earlier in his career, Salah has found them much harder to find in the second half of his Anfield tenure.So, has it all been a conspiracy against the 33-year-old? And given Salah has, since December 2021, twice won the Premier League Golden Boot, Footballer of the Year and PFA Player of the Year awards and lifted the Premier League, it clearly wouldn't have been a particularly successful one.Changes in his game, the shift in personnel around him and, no doubt, a different approach to defending the forward have contributed to there being less opportunity of being upended in the box.