Salah has enjoyed a flying start to life at Anfield and his brilliant opening goal in Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Everton was his 19th in all competitions since joining from Roma for a club record £36.9 million.
The 25-year-old was substituted by Klopp in the 67th minute and looked on from the bench as Wayne Rooney grabbed a point from the penalty spot for Sam Allardyce’s visitors.
Having started without Brazilian duo Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino in the starting XI, the decision to remove Salah invited further scrutiny on Klopp, but the former Borussia Dortmund boss insisted he was acting out of necessary precaution.
“I took Mo Salah off because he had a hamstring [problem] a little bit,” Klopp told reporters.
“Then everyone said: ‘How can you take him off?’ and stuff like this. I don’t go out and say: ‘Yeah, but he is close to being injured.’
“He is not at the moment, thank God. Hopefully we took him off early enough.”
Victory over third-bottom West Brom will guarantee a return to the top four for Liverpool ahead of their weekend trip to Bournemouth and Salah is keen to bounce back from eventual derby-day disappointment.
“All of us were disappointed after that game but that was the result and we have to carry on,” he told Liverpool’s official website.
“The next game is an important game for us at home, we have to get the three points and look forward.”
