Djimi Traore cites ‘insane’ reason that could plausibly explain Mo Salah’s drop in goals

Djimi Traore has claimed that Mo Salah has fallen victim to the ‘insane’ demands placed on top footballers in the modern era and has attributed the Liverpool winger’s decline this season to his huge workload finally catching up with him.

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In eight full seasons at Liverpool prior to this season, the Egyptian had never scored fewer than 23 goals for the Reds in all competitions. Two-thirds of the way through the current campaign, his total stands at seven, a huge drop even taking into account his absence due to the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

Numerous pundits believe the 33-year-old will leave for pastures new in the summer, with Pat Nevin scathingly opining that a plastic bag briefly blown onto the pitch had ‘a bigger impact on the game’ than our number 11 in the win over Nottingham Forest last Sunday.

Traore: Salah will finally have to deal with a huge workload

Amid such widespread criticism of Salah from the outside world, Traore has eschewed extremist sound bytes to instead offer the valid explanation that the sheer amount of football the winger has played is now starting to take its toll.

The 2005 Champions League winner continued talkSPORT Breakfast: “I think he still has football in him. We all know that football is very difficult at the moment. You play with more intensity, the team knows you. I think he has played too many games, so maybe sometimes you have to rest him and keep him fresh. It’s difficult to play that game with high intensity when you start to get old.”

“Mo Salah is a legend for Liverpool. What he has done, I don’t think some players can get him. The way he wants to end his career at Liverpool, it’s just about him, how he wants to do it.”

Traore added: “You know, football is crazy right now. When you’re among the top players, when you play for a big club and you can play more than 75 games a year or something like that, I think it’s crazy.”

“The demand is greater than before. You play every three days when you play in the Champions League, when you play in the league, and when you also play for your national team. It is difficult to always play at the same intensity. You have to give some young players the opportunity.”

Salah has hardly had a breather in the past nine years

Salah is known for his incredible durability – thus Transfer marketSince joining Liverpool in June 2017, he has been injured in just 20 games for club and country – and has been working almost non-stop in that time.

In addition to the intensity of Premier League football and annual European commitments, the winger has also featured in a World Cup and four different AFCONs with Egypt during his time as a Reds player, and the sheer number of minutes he has amassed over the past nine years is extraordinary.

	Liverpool minutes played	Liverpool goals	Egypt minutes played*	Goals Egypt*
2017/18	4,119	44	529	6
2018/19	4,342	27	659	6
2019/20	4,061	23	0	0
2020/21	4,178	31	180	2
2021/22	4,014	31	1,441	2
2022/23	4,301	30	433	4
2023/24	3,132	25	855	6
2024/25	4,501	34	435	3
2025/26	2,276	7	928	6
TOTAL	34,954	252	5,460	35

*Note: Summer matches involving Egypt are attributed to the previous season (i.e. matches played in Egypt in June 2018 are included in 2017/2018 figures, etc.)

As the table above shows, Salah has amassed more than 40,000 minutes of football for club and country since joining Livepool. That equals 673.5 hours, or just over 28 days if you put it into one huge chunk.

In that context, it’s remarkable that it only takes this season for that incomprehensible workload to finally catch up to him. Even though he’s on pace to play fewer minutes than usual this season, he’s still an almost automatic starter under Arne Slot.

The burning question is whether his 2025/2026 figures are just a statistical anomaly, or the start of a continued decline after so many years of excelling at the highest level.

Liverpool’s head coach has had little faith in Federico Chiesa over the past 18 months, so we can expect Salah to start most games from now until the end of May. What happens next is another matter.

Whatever the future holds, what is beyond doubt is that the Egyptian has been one of the greatest players to ever grace the hallowed grounds of Anfield, and one season of reduced production will not change that.