{"id":13083,"date":"2025-10-20T11:49:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/salah-shouldnt-be-automatic-starter-in-away-games-carragher\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:11","slug":"salah-shouldnt-be-automatic-starter-in-away-games-carragher","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/salah-shouldnt-be-automatic-starter-in-away-games-carragher\/","title":{"rendered":"Salah shouldn&#8217;t be automatic starter in away games: Carragher"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah&#8217;s form has dipped to such an extent that he should not be considered an automatic starter away from home, former defender Jamie Carragher said after the Premier League champions suffered a fourth consecutive defeat.<\/span><\/div>\n<div id=\"x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div>The 33-year-old Egyptian forward, who signed a two-year contract extension in April, has been way below his record-breaking form from last season&#8217;s campaign and has gone seven matches without a non-penalty goal.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Salah squandered a golden opportunity to score in Liverpool&#8217;s 2-1 defeat by Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday and Carragher said he should not be one of the first names on the team sheet like captain Virgil van Dijk.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Liverpool have got two away games, in the Champions League at Frankfurt and then they go to Brentford. I don&#8217;t think Salah should start both of those games,&#8221; Carragher told <i>Sky Sports.<\/i>&#8220;He should always start at Anfield because Liverpool will be on top, around the edge of the box and more often than not he scores in those situations today.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;But I do think in the away games and helping your full-back, I don&#8217;t think Salah should be starting every game right now, certainly away from home, with the form he&#8217;s in.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Liverpool came into Sunday&#8217;s game on the back of league defeats by Crystal Palace and Chelsea, and a Champions League loss to Galatasaray. Their poor run comes despite splashing out 446 million Pounds ($600 million) in the close-season transfer window and Carragher said manager Arne Slot should build the team around Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;It has to be Isak and Wirtz because they&#8217;ve spent the money on them and their age profile compared to Salah,&#8221; Carragher said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Liverpool are fourth in the league on 15 points from eight matches, four behind leaders Arsenal.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13084,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-13083","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Salah squandered a golden opportunity to score in Liverpool's 2-1 defeat by Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday.||Salah squandered a golden opportunity to score in Liverpool's 2-1 defeat by Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday.","published_date":null,"news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18372,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13083\/revisions\/18372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}