Danny Murphy has called for Mohamed Salah to do more defending if he is to improve his stuttering form this season.The Egyptian star has been well below his usual levels this season, as have most of his teammates, but Salah was particularly poor during Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat against Manchester City.Salah has struggled for Liverpool this termGetty Last season, Salah hit new heights as his 29 league goals inspired the Reds to the Premier League title.The winger broke numerous records, with Liverpool set up to get the best out of him.This often involved Arne Slot leaving the forward up front and allowing him to have minimal defensive duties.The rest of the team covered for Salah, and in response, he helped deliver the title.But this season is very different, and Murphy wants to see Salah start tracking back.Speaking on Monday’s edition of The Kick-Off, he said: “Giving Salah the license to not defend against a left-back who loves going forward and isn’t even a left-back in O’Reilly, who has been brilliant recently… I couldn’t believe what I was watching, to be honest. “I don’t know how he [Slot] can keep watching the same thing and not change it, and it’s not like Salah can’t do the running, he hasn’t asked him to see if he can.“He doesn’t have to do it every single time, but he has spent so long not doing it.“I vividly remember the City away game last season when Liverpool won 2-0, and he did loads of defending.“When you see Jeremy Doku having the start he did, and Bradley is having a tough time with him, and O’Reilly is flying, your brain just goes, ‘we are 1-0 down, I am going back’.Murphy wants to see Salah start to contribute in the defensive third“Last season, Salah came out and said he was enjoying it more because he doesn’t have to defend as much as he did with Klopp.“But it’s just time and time again, and I don’t think he needs to be dropped because he’s such a threat, but I think you’ve got to tell him to defend.”Big problemSlot publicly admitted in February that Salah wasn’t the best at tracking back and it was obvious from his tactics that the Liverpool star was being allowed to do less tracking back.In that interview after a 2-0 away win over Bournemouth, Slot said: “I think it’s clear that they [Bournemouth] have many good things, this team, but the left full-back [Milos Kerkez] is definitely a threat going forwards, and Mo Salah is an incredible player, but his main strength is not following the opposite full back.”It seems teams are taking this into account, and it is starting to cause Liverpool issues.The Reds have lost five of their last six Premier League games, and Man City exploited Salah’s role.Salah’s off-ball role in the Liverpool team is starting to be an issueO’Reilly started at left-back for the Citizens, and he bombed forward time and time again.Meanwhile, Doku was on fire and tore Reds right-back Bradley apart.But they aren’t the first team to take advantage of this.Marc Cucurella spoke about it in detail after Chelsea beat Liverpool at Stamford Bridge last month.He said: “We know that Salah is always ready for the counter-attack so we practiced that and the manager said that the space might be there [on the right side of Liverpool].“We saw that it was the last minute but we kept attacking. I tried to give my last effort and Enzo [Fernandez] gave me the ball and I crossed for Estevao.”Estevao’s winner came due to Cucurella finding space on the left for ChelseaOne thing that probably hasn’t helped as well is the lack of a solid Trent Alexander-Arnold replacement.Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong and even Dominik Szoboszlai have all played at right-back this season.But despite this issue, Murphy still wants to see more from Salah in a defensive sense.