Is this the end of an era?
After eight-and-a-bit years, Mohamed Salah‘s (£14.0m) Liverpool future is up in the air.
Three successive benchings were followed by a public outpouring from the Egyptian on Saturday, which begged the question about how player and manager can repair their faltering relationship and move forwards.
Like Chief Wiggum getting sucked into the hot dog roller, it may be about to get worse before it gets better.
Salah has been omitted from the Liverpool squad to face Inter Milan on Tuesday. It leaves his participation in the Gameweek 16 clash with Brighton and Hove Albion up in air; he departs for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) thereafter.
Monday was Arne Slot’s first chance to respond to Salah’s post-Leeds candour.
Here is everything he said about the Egyptian in his pre-Champions League press conference…
Q. Do you think he was referring to you when he talked about being thrown under the bus?
Slot: “The only one who can answer that question is Mo himself. So, I can guess, but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do in this moment of time. It’s hard for me to tell who he means in that situation, to be honest.”
Q. Have you spoken to him and how do you feel about what he’s had to say overall?
Slot: “We’ve let him know that he’s not travelling with us. So, that was the only conversation that has been there from us to him. Of course, before Saturday, the two of us have spoken a lot; sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.”
Q, Do you feel your relationship has broken down with him?
Slot: “No, that’s not the way I feel, but he has the right to feel how he feels things. I haven’t felt that at all till Saturday evening, for sure, because I think when I didn’t play him anymore, usually players don’t like the manager then that much, but he was very respectful to my staff members, to his teammates, and he trained really hard.
“So, to an extent, it was a surprise for me when I heard after the game that he gave the comments he gave. But as I said, it’s not the first and not the last time that when a player doesn’t play – I’m not sure if he was emotional or not – that he says something similar to what he did, but I think our, my reaction to that is also clear, and that’s that he’s not here with us tonight.”
Q. Will he be considered for selection against Brighton at the weekend and what will it take to resolve this situation long term?
Slot: “I think we are sitting here on an evening before a big game, a big fixture for us, Inter Milan, and there was only now maybe 36 hours between the moment we conceded the 3-3 against Leeds, and the moment I’m sitting here now. I think you can understand as well that I’ve tried to prepare my team in the best possible way for the game tomorrow evening.
“So, the most thoughts I had are about tomorrow, and in the meantime, we’ve decided what I just said, not to take him with us to this game. After tomorrow, we will look at the situation again.”
Q. Do you see a scenario where Salah returns to the team?
Slot: “I’m a firm believer that there’s always a possibility to return for a player, so, yeah, I can leave it with that, I think.”
Q. How was his reaction in the conversation you’ve had today?
Slot: “[laughs] A short one.”
Q. Why has he been on the bench for the last three games? What prompted that change?
Slot: “I think, we as a team, struggled this season and already last season, more and more, with the game plans other teams had against us. I’m not only talking about the long-ball style, which is something teams mainly do against us now.
“So, I’ve tried to come up with solutions because this is my job. And we’ve tried many things, and we looked very vulnerable, in my opinion, after all the things I’ve tried against Forest and against PSV, and then I decided to play with an extra midfielder in the game against West Ham, where we won the game. So I decided to do it one more time against Sunderland, where at half-time I brought him in.
“And against Leeds, we faced a 5-3-2, where I’ve decided to play a 4-4-2 diamond, if you want to look at it like this, with Hugo Ekitike a bit off the right side, and Cody Gakpo a bit off the left, with Florian Wirrtz in between. I could have played Mo off the right as well off the right, instead of Hugo, but I decided to play Hugo.”
Q. Hand on heart, do you think he’s played his last game for Liverpool?
Slot: “I have no clue. I cannot answer that question at this moment of time.”
Q. Do you feel like your authority has been undermined? Do you feel let down?
Slot: “I don’t feel my authority is undermined. It’s not the way I feel it.
“If that was even possible [to make life more difficult], but it’s not about me. If my life is difficult, yes or no, that’s not very important in a situation like this. It is if it’s more difficult for the team and for the club. And I think no one likes us to be in the situation we are in at the moment.
“First of all, it’s difficult to see that staff members that work so hard on a daily basis, they are affected by the situation we’re in now as well, mainly because of the results, second of all about what this has done as well. So, that’s not a good thing for us as a team. And this is where I’m mostly, where my thoughts go to, not towards me.
“Because I’m the manager I have to pick a team, so I’m, to a certain extent, I’m important to this situation as wellt but the focus that I have at the moment is completely on the team and not on me at all.”
Q. When Mo said he felt he was thrown under the bus, do you understand that frustration and why he would say such things?
Slot: “Then I should know exactly what he means with it, and that is difficult for me to know what exactly he means with it and why he says this, and who he is referring to.
Q. So you’ve not had that conversation?
Slot: “No. No, not what he meant with those words. Usually I’m calm and polite, but that doesn’t mean I’m weak. So, if a player has these comments about so many things, then it’s about me, us as a club, to react, and we reacted in a way you can see now: that he’s not here.”
Q. Do you think you could have done anything differently to avoid this happening?
Slot: “Then I should find out exactly why he said what he said. But then I have to guess a little bit, if that’s not only because he doesn’t play, then the answer to your question could be, just play him every single time. But maybe that’s not the reason why he said what he said. Maybe there’s some something else why he has this opinion, but that I don’t know.
“Is it about me not playing him? Yeah, then the answer could be, what could I do differently – playing him? But maybe that’s not the reason why he thinks and feels this way.
“And he has every right to feel what he feels, but he doesn’t have the right to share it with the media. He has that right, but then it’s up to us to react on it.”
Q. When was the last time that you spoke to Salah, are you on speaking terms?
Slot: “Yes, we were [on speaking terms]. It doesn’t mean we were always agreeing on things, but I spoke to him twice in a week in the two days before Leeds.”
Q. Have you spoken to him since Leeds?
Slot: “Nope. I already said that a few times. Yeah, he was on the training ground today and I told him that he didn’t travel. But that’s not speaking to someone, in my opinion. Yeah, that is speaking to someone, but it’s not having a conversation in your room, but I had that twice in the lead-up towards Leeds, one a little bit longer and one a bit shorter. But I’m not going to go into the details, if that’s going to be the next question.”
Q. To clarify, you meant you spoke to him in the group, when he was there, in training?
Slot: “Yeah, I communicated towards him that he wasn’t travelling.”
