Perhaps it is fitting that a Liverpool season characterized by late drama should have one final twist in the tale.
With only days to go until the end of what has been a tumultuous campaign for the reigning Premier League champions, Mohamed Salah — who is set to bring the curtain down on a glittering Anfield career when he plays his final game on Sunday before leaving on a free transfer this summer — has set the stage for an intriguing season finale by once again turning up the heat on besieged head coach Arne Slot.
On Saturday, less than 24 hours after Liverpool’s humiliating 4-2 defeat at Aston Villa, Salah took to social media to make his frustrations with the Reds’ insipid title defense known to his legions of online followers.
“I have witnessed this club go from doubters to believers, and from believers to champions,” the Egypt international wrote. “It took hard work and I always did everything I could to help the club get there. Nothing makes me prouder than that.
“Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies.
“That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.”
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On the face of it, Salah makes some salient points. For a team that won the title by a 10-point margin last term, Liverpool have fallen way short of expectations this season, even when accounting for the considerable mitigation.
While UEFA Champions League qualification can still be assured with a victory over Brentford this weekend, the Reds have undeniably underperformed according to nearly every conceivable metric. The rap sheet of unwelcome records plundered by Slot’s side this season make for uncomfortable reading for the Dutchman — 19 defeats (the most suffered since 2009-10) and 52 league goals conceded (the most in more than a century), to name but a few.
Salah’s sentiments have resonated not only with the fanbase — which has grown disillusioned with Slot’s management — but also with several of his teammates. At the time of writing, 12 members of the squad, including six of those who featured at Villa Park on Friday night, have liked the post on Instagram, suggesting the forward’s misgivings are also harbored by other members of the Liverpool dressing room.
However you dress it up, the optics do not look good for Slot, who over the course of the past nine months has hemorrhaged most of the support he deservedly won for guiding the Reds to the title last season. And yet that does not mean that Salah’s methods here are entirely selfless, nor that they should be beyond reproach.
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The 33-year-old’s feud with Slot has provided an undignified subplot to a season that has already had its fair share of challenges, both on and off the pitch. Last December, after being dropped to the bench for a third consecutive game, Salah gave an incendiary interview to reporters at Elland Road following Liverpool’s 3-3 draw with Leeds United.
“I think it is very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame,” Salah said. “I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager, and all of a sudden we don’t have any relationship. I don’t know why but it seems to me, how I see it, that someone doesn’t want me in the club. It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus. That is how I am feeling.”
It was only the fourth time in more than eight years that Salah had stopped in the post-match mixed zone to give an interview to the written press, with his outburst clearly fueled by the belief that he had been scapegoated for his team’s poor form.
Perhaps in that instance, too, there was some semblance of truth in his assertions. After all, Liverpool have won 61% of their games with Salah in the starting XI this season, compared to 35% without.
He is far from the Reds’ only problem, although even his most ardent supporters would have to concede that his own performance levels have dropped dramatically this term, with his current tally of nine goals and 12 assists in all competitions putting him emphatically on course for his least productive season in a Liverpool shirt. What’s more, as one of the most high-profile athletes on the planet, it is only natural that Salah’s contributions, both positive and negative, will invite more external attention than those of his less prominent teammates.
In the aftermath of his comments at Leeds, the forward was omitted from the squad for a decisive Champions League clash against Internazionale. But, despite his absence at San Siro, 26 of the 34 questions posed to Slot and goalkeeper Alisson Becker in the pre-match news conference were about Salah.
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Whether or not it was his intention, the Egypt international made himself the story, just as he has done again here. A week that should be about the celebration of his remarkable legacy — and that of left back Andy Robertson, who is also set to play his last game for Liverpool this weekend — has now become a breeding ground for more hostility and tension in a fanbase that is already worryingly fractured.
Nobody connected with the club needs to be told this season has not been good enough, nor that things must improve next term. Salah’s commitment to Liverpool cannot be questioned and his obvious concerns about the direction of the club — as well as the thoughts of his teammates — should help to inform the decisions made by owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) and sporting director Richard Hughes this summer.
However, no player — no matter how great their stature — should be allowed to dictate a manager’s future. Cristiano Ronaldo tried to do so at Manchester United in November 2022, when he gave an explosive interview to broadcaster Piers Morgan in which he claimed he had no respect for boss Erik ten Hag.
Within weeks, Ronaldo’s contract at United had been terminated and he had found a fresh challenge with Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. It did not matter that his lack of faith in Ten Hag was ultimately vindicated by the Dutchman’s dismissal less than two years later; the reality is that empowering star players to indulge in such powerplays rarely ends well for a club.
Salah has always been adept at choosing the pertinent moments to speak and it is no coincidence that he has done so at a time when Slot’s standing within the eyes of the fanbase is at an all-time low. The Egypt international’s references to “heavy metal” football and turning fans from “doubters to believers” — both phrases coined by Jürgen Klopp — play on the heartstrings of a fanbase that craves the return of the glory days under Slot’s predecessor.
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To many, it is of little consequence that both Salah and Klopp have acknowledged their relationship has improved dramatically now they no longer have to work together, nor is it relevant that Salah eulogized about Slot’s more controlled style of play when it was yielding success for both him and the team last season.
In the partisan world of football fandom, where support for an individual player or coach can sometimes trump an allegiance to a club as a whole, battle lines must be drawn and sides must be taken.
Slot himself reinforced that notion earlier this month when, after being quizzed on Salah’s suggestion that standards at Liverpool needed to be upheld in his absence, he pointed out that “standards are not only important in the gym.”
It was a needless comment that only added fuel to the fire, though perhaps Slot — much like Salah — simply felt the human urge to defend himself after being assailed from all angles.
For the most part this season, the Dutchman has publicly remained respectful to the forward, though his diplomacy is likely to be tested once more when he gives a news conference ahead of the Brentford game later this week.
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“If I was Arne Slot, I’d have [Salah] nowhere near the stadium in the last game,” Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney said on his BBC podcast on Monday. “I had it with Alex Ferguson. I had a disagreement and fallout and at Alex Ferguson’s last game at Old Trafford, he left me out of the squad for that reason.”
Ultimately, though, Slot will know that any stance he takes will invite criticism. With his position already precarious, including Salah in the squad against Brentford and allowing him his Anfield farewell is likely to be the safest course of action.
It is a sad, messy state of affairs and there is no magical cure for all of Liverpool’s ills. Perhaps the fact of the matter is that two things can be true at once.
Slot can be a talented coach who deserves enormous respect for his work last season, but whose long-term future is worthy of scrutiny. Likewise, Salah can be a Liverpool legend deeply invested in the future of the club, but also a footballer unable to reconcile with the reality that his powers are waning.
This is a time of enormous uncertainty at Anfield. The only thing beyond any doubt is that, in this situation, there can be no winner.
