John Aldridge: Mo Salah has gone missing when Liverpool need him most

Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Chelsea at Anfield was a strange experience for those of us shivering in the stands.

You look at the quality on the field and on the benches of both teams and its hard to explain why they are struggling so badly.

Then you see the match and realise that both teams are in a difficult place.

The positive Liverpool can take from the draw is a second successive clean sheet and some decent performances from the youngsters given a chance to play.

Yet I looked at Salah and wonder where the giant who has carried the Liverpool challenge over the last few years has gone.

He was up against one of the most over-rated and over-priced players in Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella and he never looked like getting past him.

You could say he is lacking service from a Liverpool midfield that has lost its way badly.

But Salah was winning matches on his own a few years back and that player is no longer with us.

Mo got a bumper new contract and deserved it after everything he has done for the club since his arrival in the summer of 2017.

The trouble is, the Salah of 2023 is a shadow of the player who helped Liverpool win trophies time and again under Jurgen Klopp’s watch and he needs to find his feet again soon.

After Egypt failed to qualify for the World Cup, I was hoping the one-man break would work in Liverpool and Salah’s favour when the Premier League action resumed last month.

That has not been the case and Salah’s slump has contributed to a strange collapse of this Liverpool team.

This time last year, Klopp’s side were challenging for the Premier League title and were undoubtedly one of the best teams in Europe. They finished the season with the FA Cup and efl Cup in the Anfield trophy cabinet, while also making it through to another Champions League final.

Six months on and they are a long way off the top four places on the Premier League and I don’t see them winning anything this season.

How has this happened?

You can come up with a variety of excuses but the trouble is, Klopp’s jigsaw has been broken up into too many loose pieces now.

I don’t know whether Salah’s bumper new contract may have affected morale in the dressing room and the prospect of the club having new owners might also be a factor.

Maybe the truth is there is not one reason why Liverpool’s season has collapsed, but there is no doubt now that Klopp has a big job on his hands to get them back on track.

I have not questioned this Liverpool manager too often in my Sunday World column down the years, but he left me scratching my head.

At a time when wins are needed to get back in the mix for a top four finish, a team sheet which included youngsters Stefan Bajetic and Harvey Elliott surprised me.

Don’t get me wrong, they are promising talents and could do well in years to come, but they are not pulling teams apart like Steven Gerrard was a their age.

So I’d have gone with my strongest team yesterday and told them to get at a Chelsea side that are there for the taking.

Seeing Naby Keita starting was also a shock as he clearly hasn’t got his heart with Liverpool with his contract running out this summer.

Sports science plays a part in team selections these days and Klopp may have been told that some of his first choice players needed a rest.

Yet when you see Liverpool bench with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Darwin Nunez, it did leave me scratching me head.

Play your best team, get the season back on track and then rest players when some momentum and confidence is flowing once again.

At the moment, resting players is a risk and Klopp ended up picking a team that didn’t have the confidence to push for a win

When you then throw in the problems with Salah and the reality that Cody Gakpo will take time to settle and Klopp has too many problems on his agenda.

Liverpool will get better when Virgil van Dijk, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota return, but we can’t keep making excuses for this team.

They were looking like world beaters not so long ago and now, they look like a mid-table team that have lost their way.

All Liverpool fans are proud of what Klopp and his players have done for the club over the last few years and now the moment has come to step up again before it’s too late.