When Mohamed Salah left for the Africa Cup of Nations five and a half weeks ago, it was fair to wonder if one of Liverpool’s greatest ever players might ever find a comfortable place for himself in Arne Slot’s side. Even when Alexander Isak’s injury put the kibosh on any prospect of a move to the Saudi Pro League, the sense was that Salah might not mesh with the changes that were being made at Anfield in his absence.
They had been trending in this way before last season’s talisman went to Morocco, but as the bandwagon rolled on in this curiously underwhelming unbeaten run, now at 13 after a 3-0 win in Marseille that was anything but, Slot had bent this team a little more in his direction. He might speak about his desire to be more attacking, to convert more chances, but the clear trend has been towards a more cautious setup, often by dominating the ball in a way they did not at the Stade Velodrome, but invariably by keeping their shape disciplined and their frontline organizing themselves to be effective out of possession.
That did not feel like a natural fit for Salah, the man who claimed he had made a pact with Slot last season to ease off on his defensive responsibilities on the promise that he would score the goals to win them the Premier League title. And yet here were Liverpool in one of the most boisterous grounds on the Champions League circuit, for the most part keeping it tight and disciplined while finding a way to get Salah back into the side.
To do so, Slot rolled out an updated version of an approach he has experimented with one and off this season. Hugo Ekitike has often been encouraged to drift wide from a center forward berth, the space he vacated filled by one of Dominik Szoboszlai or Florian Wirtz. Instead, on Wednesday, both were pushed up to create what quite frequently looked like a 4-2-4.
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Such a construction of the attack might have you thinking that Liverpool were all daring do. Nothing of the sort. This was a controlled display even without the ball, a side that used their strength of numbers to ensure that the game was played where they wanted it to. Even though Marseille had nearly 60% possession, it was their visitors who had more touches in the final third, forcing their opposition to play more of a counter-attacking game.
Into this system, Salah fit quite effectively. With the overlapping presence of Jeremie Frimpong outside him, the No. 11 was in an inside right pocket in which he will always feel comfortable. In the first half, an elegant clip over the backline found Ekitike, who might have gone a moment too soon, only for the Frenchman to struggle to get the ball out of his feet. A cutting run across the front of the Marseille defense to meet a Frimpong cross nearly brought one of the goals of the league phase, a flick with the calf that looked extremely deliberate as it looped onto the roof of Geronimo Rulli’s net.
Salah probably should have gotten his first club goal since Nov. 1 when he poked wide late on, but this did not feel like a Liverpool team that were going to be so reliant on their record European scorer to conjure something out of nothing. After all, Dominik Szoboszlai could do that with a brilliant low free kick. Even then it always seemed that Liverpool had the control and composure to see this out.
It was not perfect, and there are kinks to this 4-2-4 that Marseille might feel they could have better exploited. That was particularly apparent in the early exchanges when OM found their way through the Liverpool attack and had Amir Murillo driving at an out-of-position Frimpong, who tackled well enough and excelled on the attack. Salah and Ekitike are never going to be tyros off the ball and there were more threatening moments for Marseille early than one shot in the first half might suggest.
At least in this system, with Wirtz and Szoboszlai patrolling the center out of possession, Liverpool look altogether less exposed to the more dangerous passes through the middle that have so disturbed them in 2025-26. This is a team that have been able to cope with giving up space and opportunities to opposition fullbacks for the best part of a decade. In this current structure, they don’t have to worry that the same will be true in the most dangerous areas of the field.
A much better performance with Salah restored to the XI does not answer plenty of the long-term issues at Liverpool. This 4-2-4-ish system allows Slot to fit four of the big five attacking players in relatively comfortably. How does it work when Isak returns from injury and wants to occupy central spots? What happens when Liverpool run into a team with a left flank that can hold off Frimpong when he tries to make up all the ground he has given up on his overlapping run? Does either the Liverpool hierarchy or Salah really see him seeing out the final year of his contract?
For now, at least, Slot has earned the right to park those questions. His Liverpool side may not be setting the world alight in a fashion you’d expect given their firepower, but their unbeaten run is the longest across Europe’s top five leagues. Salah has been reintegrated without any tumult. A few more performances like this, and there is still the prospect of this trying season ending in silverware. That’s not to be sniffed at, given how few could have imagined the picture might look this serene when Salah waved his momentary goodbye to Anfield only a few weeks ago.
