Newcastle United’s Christian Atsu says his side’s biggest mistake would be focusing only on stopping Liverpool’s Mo Salah in their Boxing Day clash, the Chronicle reports.
Salah already has 14 goals to his name this season, taking his overall tally to 58 for the Merseyside club since making his £34m move from Serie A side Roma back in 2017.
However, Newcastle’s Atsu has warned his side not to only focus on preventing Salah from gaining space, with the Reds bolstering a whole host of other incredibly talented players.
Atsu spoke ahead of the Magpies’ trip to Anfield:
It’s difficult to stop him as he’s a great player plus very good players around him.
For him when you have those players around you things become easy.
To try to stop him is difficult but we have to make sure we stop all of them and not focus on one player.
If you look at their results if Salah doesn’t score, Mane scores or Firminio or somebody else.
It is a fight against all of them.
Yes they are a very good team.
Defensively they are solid and in midfield and attack they are amazing.
We just need to work hard and give our all on the pitch.
I believe we are going to achieve a positive result.
The Reds currently sit top of the Premier League table and are being touted as one of the favourites for the title this season.
However, Atsu still believes his side has every chance of beating the Reds on their home turf.
Liverpool is a difficult game – but then every game is difficult.
It’s not like there are any easy games in the Premier League these days.
As Fulham showed, they are at the bottom, but they were still a tough team to play.
We worked and fought for the draw.
We will be looking for a positive result at Liverpool.
The Magpies head into the clash at Anfield on the back of a disappointing result against Fulham, but Atsu has encouraged his team to stay positive.
Fulham was also a very difficult game.
They played five at the back and made things very difficult for us.
I think it is a positive that we have four points from the last six available.
OK it’s not the best scenario but when you can’t win, don’t lose.
Fulham are at the bottom and it has kept the distance between us.
We have kept them there.
We take the positives and focus on the next game.
For us, it does not matter which team we are facing, the most important thing at this time of year is to stay fit.
We just keep working hard and making sure we win the games we need to.
