Jurgen Klopp reveals behind-the-scenes talks with Mo Salah as Liverpool decision explained

Jurgen Klopp had a ‘grown-up’ conversation with Mo Salah which helped end his brief Liverpool penalty hoodoo.

Salah scored the only goal of the game in the Reds’ 1-0 victory over Fulham on Wednesday evening. It was his second spot-kick in as many matches, having also bagged from 12 yards in last weekend’s 4-3 triumph against Tottenham.

Before that, the Liverpool forward has missed penalties against Bournemouth and Arsenal - with some then questioning whether he should be taken off the duty.

But Klopp stuck with Salah, whose effort against Fulham took him to 29 goals for the season. The Liverpool manager said: “We had a conversation and he wanted to stay the penalty taker. We had a normal conversation about it. I said: ‘OK, yeah, you are’.

“You don’t feel great in that moment, that’s what he said: I don’t feel right in that moment because the pressure obviously increases with the penalties you miss. Then Fab (Fabinho), or Trent (Alexander-Arnold), or whoever is two and three, give the ball to them, but that’s now he smashed the jigsaw, or whatever, the destiny again, and turned it around.

“This today was a super penalty I would say - that’s really clear. So, I think with all the goals Mo scored, we cannot just judge it with two missed [and] go away from it. That’s what I meant when I said we will talk about it. I know you understand when I said we’ll talk about it [that] I tell him, ‘You are off.’ But it was a conversation between two grown-up men.”

Salah has been Liverpool’s regular penalty taker since arriving from AS Roma in 2017 - and most famously scoring a spot-kick in the Champions League final victory against Tottenham in 2019.

Klopp added: “He enjoys these situations, the problem is before he missed a penalty we didn't have [one] for 28 games or so. We train that, obviously, we have people for it, but that's a special situation. You cannot [prepare for it], 28 games is like four years... it's forever.

“And you cannot remember any kind of pedal and stuff like this. You go there, and then you miss it, you can still finish it off, but then you miss it and that doesn't feel great. So, this little break after the Arsenal pen, we talk, shake it off, if you want, and we go from there. I think that's absolutely the right thing to do.”