Alexis Mac Allister has starred for Liverpool since joining from Brighton last summer, with a conversation with Mohamed Salah sparking a change in his approach to matches
Alexis Mac Allister has revealed a comment from Mohamed Salah convinced him to ditch his tracksuit bottoms for shorts.
The midfielder has starred since arriving at Anfield from Brighton in the summer transfer window. He has become a key part of the Reds midfield, helping them to mount another title challenge in what is boss Jurgen Klopp ‘s final season in charge.
Mac Allister’s title tilt comes a year after he also played a key role in Argentina’s World Cup win. The generally warmer climate of his home country did not prepare him for the chill of an English winter.
He first spent just over two years at Brighton, where he took to wearing tracksuit bottoms during warm-ups. But the 25-year-old opted to ditch that look in favour of shorts after a conversation with Salah.
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“When I was in Brighton, I used to wear trousers. Then I cam here and I remember against Sheffield [United] we went out to the warm up,” Mac Allister told Liverpool’s TV channel.
“I was wearing a hat and trousers and Mo Salah told me ‘What are you doing? Why are you wearing that?’ So since that day, I never wore trousers… Only because of Mo.”
Mac Allister has made 34 appearances in all competitions, starting the Carabao Cup final, which Liverpool won. They are still in with a chance of also lifting the Premier League title and the Europa League.
Mac Allister now only wears shorts in warm-ups after Salah spoke to him ( Image: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
The Reds are second in the table, though are only behind leaders Arsenal on goal difference. They also thrashed Sparta Prague in the last 16 to reach the quarter-finals of the Europa League, where they will play Atalanta.
And Mac Allister is confident that Liverpool will end the season lifting at least one more trophy. He insisted that the squad Klopp has created is full of winners, which stands his team in good stead ahead of the run-in.
“Maybe this year we can think about the Premier League, Europa League. I think when you want something, you have to work for it – and this group is very good at that. I think this is a group of winners,” he added.
“I came to a club that wants to keep winning and keep competing. The most important thing, I think, is that they are good people as well. I think this team wants to go game by game, step by step. But we know that we have very good chances of getting trophies.
If you ask me, of course the idea is to win everything we can. But for that, we have to keep working and keep improving. Do we want to win? Yes, everything. But we have to focus on [a] daily basis, do our best, keep improving and then at the end we will see what we achieve.”
