Aldridge: Salah needs to be careful – everyone is on to him for his diving

Mohamed Salah

Salah took a tumble during his side’s 4-3 Premier League win over Crystal Palace on Saturday, despite seemingly minimal contact from Mamadou Sakho.

It wasn’t the first time this season that the Egyptian has been criticised for going down too easily, and Aldridge thinks that he is earning himself a similar reputation to former Reds striker Luis Suarez.

“Mohamed Salah went down too easily against Crystal Palace. And now he has a problem,” Aldridge wrote in the Liverpool Echo.

“But did Mamadou Sakho catch his calf? 100%. He caught his calf with his shin, and Salah went down. That's what players do in this day and age.

“Now Salah has to be careful. Everybody is on to him. This has happened in the past with players – think Luis Suarez – who look for a touch and then go down.

“Salah got touched. Did it warrant a penalty? Some referees would have given it. There was contact but, yes, Salah went down too easily.

“The coverage of the Liverpool forward since has prompted an air of negativity around him.

“If it's a clear foul on Salah, then I'm sure referees will give a penalty in the future. But the way Mo plays means he is always going to invite contact, he is often going to have two or three players around him in the box.

“It's hard for defenders in that instance not to make contact with him. It's very, very difficult for him not to get touched.”

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Alasdair Mackenzie is a freelance journalist based in Rome, and a FourFourTwo contributor since 2015. When not pulling on the FFT shirt, he can be found at Reuters, The Times and the i. An Italophile since growing up on a diet of Football Italia on Channel 4, he now counts himself among thousands of fans sharing a passion for Ross County and Lazio.