Liverpool as a team have not met their usual standards this season, and for most fans no player represents that drop off better than Mohamed Salah.
The Egyptian was perhaps playing better than he ever had 12 months ago, scoring five goals in his opening six Premier League games as the Reds made a confident start to the 2021-22 campaign.
But fast forward to this autumn and Salah's numbers read two goals from six top-flight matches - to go with two assists registered in the victory against Newcastle - and just five shots on target.
Yet more alarming than the stats is the lack of involvement he seems to have at the moment in Liverpool's attack, for some playing very much on the periphery.
It is a notion Jurgen Klopp rejected outright when speaking after Liverpool's 0-0 draw in the Merseyside derby at Everton on Saturday.
'No, it's not more than other seasons or whatever, I'm not sure what you see there,' Klopp told reporters after being asked about Salah's positioning.
'We want to have Mo there in this position but we want to have Mo, and we always had him, more often in central positions as well.
'Today especially we wanted to use the boys a bit more centrally, but we didn't have a lot of time to train obviously.
'Actually we only recovered, we spoke a lot about it, I'm not sure I was clear enough in the first half what we wanted.
'In the moments when we played, when Mo dropped or when Lucho dropped after two or three passes they were completely free in between the lines because Darwin kept the last line back with his pure presence and they like to drop pretty early.
'But we didn't do that often enough, you are right. I don't think in the season he is too often wide, maybe today in a few moments yes. But he could have scored again in the last minute pretty much.'
The German boss is certainly right in that regard, with Salah's shot late on at Goodison Park coming back off the near post after Jordan Pickford made the last of a series of saves in the match.
But Reds fans are concerned that the player who with Son Heung-min won the Premier League Golden Boot last season, before signing a bumper new-deal at Anfield, looks a shadow of his former self.
So what do the statistics suggest has happened to the man who signed a new three-year contract worth £350,000 per week in July?
Salah's heatmap so far this season does not show a significant change from the first six games from the previous campaign, with only a slight difference when it comes to action in the penalty box.
The touches he has managed in the first six games so far this term are just three fewer than the number he had brought up at the same stage in 2021-22.
Klopp therefore appears to be right. Salah remains involved in Liverpool's attacking build-up and he is still without doubt central to their threat going forward.
He has created 24 chances so far this season, eight more than he had racked up at the same stage last season. He has also made 34 penalty area entries in 2022-23, clear of the 25 he had made at the same point near enough 12 months ago.
The spaces he is looking to attack through have also not really altered, as the above heatmaps have shown. What has changed, however, is Salah's ruthlessness in front of goal.
His expected goals ratio has dropped from 4.5 to 2.6. The quality of the chances he has been on the end of has therefore decreased, and he is also managing a goal every 270 minutes.
Yet the quantity of shots he is producing has nosedived too. At this stage last season, the 30-year-old had managed 25 shots on goal, 22 of which ended up coming from inside the box.
Those numbers drop by eight in both categories though for this season, with 14 of his 17 shots coming from inside the penalty area.
The Egypt star's shot conversion has similarly decreased from 20 per cent to below 12 per cent, while he has yet to have a shot following a fast break this season.
Overall passes and touches are also down, from 205 to 174 with the former and from 317 to 286 in the case of the latter, though how much this matters when it comes to the quality of his attacking output is debatable.
In terms of more detailed analysis in terms of touches, The Athletic have provided a little more insight into Salah's struggles.
They claim he is averaging just 47.7 touches per 90 minutes in the Premier League this season, down from 56 per 90 last season and 54 per 90 in 2020-21.
The same outlet claims his touches in the far right channel have increased by five per cent.
It all points largely to fairly minor differences which currently are having a huge impact in the side he is playing for.
Turning his form around, and closing the spaces in what at the moment appears to be a very wide front three, could be the trigger that kickstarts Liverpool's season.
