Has Salah been labelled a diver?
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³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport's chief football writer Phil McNulty has been answering your questions.
Andy asked: During every match, Mohamed Salah is constantly rugby tackled, manhandled, pushed, and grappled by defenders but hardly ever gets a free-kick in his favour. Do you think the refereess have marked him as a diver or are they simply incompetent?
Phil answered: I’ve not seen every Liverpool match, so I cannot make a definitive judgement but I have asked Opta to give me some stats on fouls given for challenges on Mohamed Salah.
Here are some that might interest you.
In 11 Premier League games this season, the figure is eight fouls for challenges on Salah – three of those were in the opening game at Ipswich Town. In 38 games in 2022-23 it was 20 fouls. In 32 games last season it was 12 fouls, so you suspect he is on course for that figure to be exceeded this season.
The season when that figure was highest was in 2018-19, when it was 25 in 38 games.
Obviously it is a matter of opinion as to whether he is being denied fouls but there are the statistics.