John Barnes has Mohamed Salah hunch after Liverpool role CHANGE vs Betis

Liverpool legend John Barnes has spotted a change in Mohamed Salah's role against Real Betis and believes goalscoring could come secondary to the forward as a result.

The Egypt international has been the Reds' chief goal-getter ever since arriving from AS Roma in the summer of 2017 but there is some intrigue over how he will perform under new head coach Arne Slot after enjoying so much success in Jurgen Klopp's system.

Against Real Betis there was a glimpse of the Dutchman's tactical vision and it resulted in Salah drifting a lot wider than usual, thus stretching the opposition backline as opposed to operating more centrally which put in him many goalscoring positions.

The decision paid off as the 32-year-old claimed the assist for Dominik Szoboszlai to score the only goal of the game in the 34th minute and it remains to be seen if this will be a permanent role change for the prolific forward.

If so, then Barnes is of the opinion that Salah will take up the mantle as chief creator in the side which could reduce the amount of goals the Liverpool no.11 scores which means the midfield players will have to step up.

"It seems as if Mo may play more of a supportive role in terms of being more creative," Barnes said when speaking on the Official Liverpool Podcast. "Of course, Mo plays well with a centre-forward who comes short and he makes those inward runs.

"You didn’t see Mo make many inward runs today. He was playing a bit wider.

"They will have to tinker with that if you get more goals from midfield, if they don’t get more goals from midfield I think Mo will get 30 or 40 goals, but as long as they share it around it will be fine."

Slot explains formation experiment

It was case of Arne Slot experimenting with his tactics against Real Betis. After all he was without a recognised senior central striker option with Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo all away on holiday after appearing at international tournaments this summer.

As a result, the Dutchman opted for an intriguing 4-2-4 formation in possession with Szoboszlai playing in tandem with Harvey Elliott up front but has admitted his preferred system will have focal point in attack so it might be that Salah will be restored to his natural role.

"I think during the season you will see us play with a real striker," Slot revealed after the game." But at this moment we have no-one available and then with Dom and Harvey [Elliott] we've got two No.10s, so we put them in the position they will play during the season as well.

"So that was one of the reasons why we played with a double 10 instead of with a striker. That is maybe out of necessity. But for the rest of the style of play with trying to build up from the back, that is our style – to control the game, to not concede constant counter-attacks.

"That will hopefully be our style during the season. There are also, of course, many things we can improve but that's normal after two weeks."