Mohamed Salah has already proven Trent Alexander-Arnold theory to be nonsense at Liverpool

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There is a school of thought that Mohamed Salah is suffering without Trent Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool.

Since the England international moved to Real Madrid in May, the Egypt international has only scored three goals in 11 appearances across all competitions.

There is a theory that the Liverpool No.11 is missing the chances regularly created by the Real Madrid No.12 – who assisted 13 goals for him in 319 appearances together at Anfield.

However, Mohamed Salah has already proven that he can thrive without Trent Alexander-Arnold.

2017/18 campaign shows Mohamed Salah theory carries little weight

The Egyptian remarkably scored 44 goals and provided 16 assists in 52 appearances across all competitions in the 2017/18 campaign – his first season at Anfield following a £34m move from Roma in June 2017.

At the same time, Alexander-Arnold was yet to truly break into the starting XI under Jurgen Klopp that term, making just 18 starts out of a possible 38 in the Premier League.

Of all those 44 goals for Salah, who adores Virgil van Dijk, that season, the Liverpool academy graduate only assisted two of them, which is proof the 33-year-old can succeed without the creativity of the Englishman.

Arne Slot does need to settle on a right-back to help Mohamed Salah

There remains an argument that Salah, who Cody Gakpo loves playing with, is suffering from the fact Arne Slot is yet to allow one right-back to establish themselves in the position this season.

Conor Bradley has made four starts across all competitions, with Jeremie Frimpong making five – while even Dominik Szoboszlai has played four games in that area.

The constant rotation in that department has seemingly allowed opponents to double up on Salah without Bradley or Frimpong being able to take advantage of the space, due to a lack of match sharpness.

Therefore, the sooner Slot picks one of the pair as his main right-back option, the quicker Salah can begin to focus on what he needs to do to improve.