Jurgen Klopp insists he has no concerns about Mohamed Salah’s goal drought.
Salah heads into Liverpool’s clash with Southampton on Saturday without finding the target consecutively in three of his previous games in all competitions.
The Egypt international has recorded two goals from his first six matches for the Reds this season; just one less than the same period in the previous campaign.
He also played a costly pass in the build-up to Kylain Mbappe’s equaliser for Paris Saint-Germain before they were edged out in Tuesday’s Champions League tie.
It is a stark contrast to Salah’s debut campaign at Anfield, in which he plundered 44 goals in 52 appearances, with 32 of them coming in the Premier League.
But Klopp remains unfazed by the forward’s current run of form and believes that the current Golden Boot holder should only be judged at the end of this season.
He said: “Of course everybody expects that (Salah repeating last season’s form), that’s clear.
“We don’t expect that but we want to score as often as possible. But it’s completely normal that everybody expects that.
“Last year in the first how many games did he score? (three in six compared to two in six this season) Wow, that’s a crisis! Nobody remembers that.
“It’s really no problem. We constantly have to deal with the new situations. People are very positive about this player and I have to decide do I talk to him about it or not, or do I leave him alone in that situation?
“But with Mo, everything is fine. Yes, he lost the ball before we conceded the second goal [against PSG on Tuesday] because it was a very intense game.
“Things like this happen constantly. You don’t always concede the goal after it. This time we did [but] it was not the reason for taking him off, of course not.
“At the end of the season we will see how it was, not at the beginning. At the start it was good for us as a team and for him as well.
“Was it already like he finished last season, the Premier League season especially? No, but he needed time last year, like we all needed time, and we will take time this year. That’s all.”