Salah’s words, aimed like a flamethrower at almost everyone at the club, from head coach Arne Slot to unnamed teammates he deemed unworthy of being picked ahead of him, and many others, created one of the most explosive interviews in recent times.
But when you rummage through the ashes left by that toxic exchange after the match, one important question remains unanswered: what exactly did he hope to gain from this shocking act of betrayal?
Salah’s time at Anfield was defined by a myriad of different types of finishing, a total of 250 goals that placed him third on the list of Liverpool’s greatest ever goalscorers. But if his aim was to undermine Slot, then this spectacular strike could very well have been an own goal.
Mo Salah in the Elland Road tunnel for his seven-minute interview.
Or if all this is to set up his departure from the club, Salah has never been closer to the Anfield exit door than he is now, despite his many hints about the future. To paraphrase Salah himself from 12 months ago, he now looks “more like someone who is about to leave than someone who is staying”.
First of all, considering Slot’s story, no club with any guts would sack a manager just because a player dared to openly challenge the right to pick the team, as Salah did after Liverpool’s latest collapse in the 3-3 draw with Leeds United, where he was on the bench again.
The modern Liverpool was laid down when Bill Shankly arrived as manager in 1959. A few years earlier, he had turned down Liverpool because the board at that time wanted to interfere in professional matters, including team selection.
Since then, the right to decide on personnel has always been a core principle belonging to the manager and that cannot and will not change.
Fenway Sports Group, the group that owns Liverpool, wants Slot to overcome this difficult second season after last season’s championship and so far they have shown no signs of wavering on that choice.
Patience will not last indefinitely but in the end, results on the field will decide Slot’s future, not Salah’s attitude.
There will be a group of Liverpool fans, sick of seeing the champions lose their crown to disastrous set-pieces, who will side with Salah after he claimed his relationship with the manager had broken down. Others, the more undecided group, will be more open to what Slot has faced and think he doesn’t deserve Salah’s attempts to take him down when almost everything is going wrong. The fact that fans have to choose sides is divisive enough and that’s one of the worst aspects of this whole farce.
What happened on Saturday night is very much a reflection of Salah’s current image. At some point, Liverpool must have expected him to publicly address his dissatisfaction with being relegated to a substitute role for three games, especially given Salah has used his rare press appearances to defend himself.
There was his wink-wink, nudge-nudged remark that “if I speak up, there will be a fire” after being left out of the squad for a game against West Ham in April 2024. That happened towards the end of Jürgen Klopp’s reign and it was widely understood that Salah had considered leaving Liverpool, if Klopp had not already decided to leave in the summer of 2024 due to exhaustion with modern football.
Salah and Klopp’s relationship is not as smooth as many people think..
Put that detail alongside Salah’s latest childish behaviour, and who is the real problem here?