MARSEILLE, France — Mohamed Salah got the start for Liverpool in a 3-0 Champions League win at Marseille on Wednesday in his return from the Africa Cup of Nations.
The Egypt star had a turbulent month at Liverpool before going to AFCON in Morocco, and did not start a game for Liverpool after a 4-1 loss at home to PSV Eindhoven eight weeks ago.
Editor’s Picks
2 Related
After the game, Slot praised the professionalism of Slot and said his familiarity with his teammates made his return to the starting lineup seamless.
“It helps he is already for so long with us so he knows his teammates and he knows how we want to play,” Slot said in his postmatch news conference. “It says a lot about how big of a professional he is that being away from us for a month in a different team, he was so fit to play 90 today.
“He was close to a goal, a good ball from Cody [Gakpo] and usually that’s a goal for him. Tonight it wasn’t, but it didn’t harm us because we scored three. I think overall, I saw a lot of very good individual performances as I saw against Arsenal, as I saw against Burnley and as I saw tonight.”
Liverpool was unbeaten in the 12 games after the loss to PSV — though not impressing in four straight draws in the Premier League — including four where Salah was on the bench then seven while he was with Egypt. He also did not travel for Liverpool’s trip to Inter Milan on Dec. 9.
Reflecting on his team’s overall performance at the Stade Veledrome on Wednesday, Slot said: “The thing that was different for the first time this season than all the other games was that the moment we were having a big chance to score the 2-0 that hit the post, 10 seconds later they had a big chance. Usually this season this ball goes in and we’re all complaining, but now the ball went over, and we extended our lead to 2-0 and 3-0.
“The performance is still the same, but the perspective of how people probably talk about is us completely different.”
Salah was involved at the AFCON tournament until the weekend when Egypt lost a third-place game to Nigeria in a penalty shootout.
Slot had hinted Tuesday that Salah would go straight into the team, suggesting “let’s see the lineup tomorrow if you still think there’s an issue.”
Salah said in December he felt “thrown under the bus” by the Premier League champion by being dropped after a series of games lost.
Speculation was rife that the 33-year-old Salah’s stellar career was over and that he could be moved in the January trading window, possibly to the Saudi Arabian league.
ESPN’s Beth Lindop contributed to this report.
