Slot discusses Salah's return after an absence of more than a month

Arne Slot praises Salah’s return as Liverpool beat Marseille 3–0 and extend their unbeaten run.

Liverpool's manager, Arne Slott, spoke about the return of star player Mohamed Salah to the team, after the end of his participation with the Egyptian national team in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Liverpool secured an important 3-0 victory over French side Olympique Marseille on Wednesday, boosting their chances of finishing the Champions League group stage in the top eight.

The match saw Salah's return after being absent from the team for more than a month.

Slot said of Salah: "This shows how professional he is. He can be out for more than a month with a different team, and yet be perfectly fit to play 90 minutes with us after just one day of training."

The Dutch coach explained: "Salah was very close to scoring a goal, and that goal usually belongs to him, but that didn't hurt us because we scored 3 goals."

This victory propelled Liverpool to fourth place, two points ahead of ninth-placed Barcelona of Spain, and the team will meet Qarabag of Azerbaijan next week.

Liverpool aims to avoid the play-off round for the round of 16 and qualify directly for this round, if they remain in the top eight after the next match.

With this victory, the English champions extended their unbeaten run to 13 consecutive matches.

Slot said after the match: "This is important because we have had to play with the same players due to injuries for most of the season. Perhaps this is why we run out of energy in some matches, when we concede goals."

He added: "I don't think Virgil van Dijk has had more than 3 days off, and the same applies to Ryan Gravenberg and others, but they continue to show up and persevere regardless of the number of difficulties we have faced this season."

Slott said: "It's always difficult to play against Marseille because of their passionate fans and the quality of their players, but what makes things even more difficult is the quality of their coach."

But he continued: "We were prepared for that. We took possession of the ball from them 3 or 4 times in the first half, but we couldn't find the player who was completely unmarked, except for one time when it was Hugo Eketiki who was slightly offside."

He continued: "We were in control when we had the ball, but what made the difference this time was that after we had a great opportunity and it hit the crossbar, they had a great opportunity and shot it over the goal. Usually this season, a ball like that would have gone in. But we went up by two clean goals and then by three clean goals, and this makes the way of seeing the game completely different."