It is a rare occasion to catch Mohamed Salah speaking to journalists. A modest type, it is said that the Egyptian doesn’t even have many close friends in the Liverpool locker room despite having spent eight years there being decisive. Averse to interviews, the best player in the Premier League last season, wanted, on Monday, to release the frustration accumulated over a week. “I’ve done so much for this club. Now I’m sitting on the bench and I don’t know why”, he said, desolate after the third consecutive game in which he didn’t start, without stopping to show his disgust: “I don’t understand why this is happening to me.”
‘Mo’ Salah’s intervention at the Leeds United stadium, made in the mixed zone where today it is even more rare for a player to stop, without being asked, and say what he thinks, lasted almost eight minutes. In the more than a thousand words he fired off, the Egyptian’s aim was not spared his targets: he spoke of the coach, Arne Slot, he spoke of the form of his teammates, he complained about the club’s unfulfilled promises and accused him of wanting to make him a scapegoat for the recent periclitative results. Liverpool were already showing signs of exploding outside, sobbing on the field. Suddenly, the volatile intervention of probably the club’s best player this century threatens to implode it from within.
The first consequence of the Egyptian’s conversation with journalists was immediate and confirmed that his absence from the team will increase to four games, as he will not be called up for this Tuesday’s game in Milan, where Liverpool will face Inter in the Champions League.
The target of 16 questions about Salah’s interview, the press conference to preview the game turned, for Arne Slot, into an exercise in dodging blows. “I firmly believe that there is always the possibility of the player returning”, defended the man forced to strengthen his armor since the end of September, after losing eight of the 14 matches played since the first defeat suffered this season. Asked whether the Egyptian will wear the Liverpool shirt again – and the very suggestion of this not happening reveals the seriousness of the situation -, the coach added to the uncertainty: “I have no idea.”
The honesty of your answer is credible given the timing of Mohamed Salah’s statements, certainly not ignorant of the player’s personal calendar. By not traveling with the team to the Champions League match, the game against Brighton, next Saturday at Anfield Road, will be the last before the Egyptian joins his team to compete in the African Cup of Nations (CAN). The competition starts on December 21st and the final, if the team from the land of the pharaohs gets there, will be on January 16th, two weeks before the winter transfer window closes. Salah speaking now will not have been innocent for his cause.
Mohamed Salah has 250 goals and 113 assists for Liverpool
Alex Livesey – Danehouse
Salah’s interview
In this time of tight control by clubs and advisors, protectors of a communication bubble that they try to control as much as possible, a footballer speaking like this, on his own initiative and without a filter, and spreading his thoughts to public opinion, could not be a more divergent act. As ‘Mo’ Salah did so, the tics of premeditation were visible. “Yesterday I called my mother,” said the player. “I told them to come to the game with Brighton. It doesn’t matter if I play or not, but I will enjoy it. We’ll see what happens. I’ll be there to say goodbye to the fans before CAN”, added the Egyptian, revealing to the world the invitation made to parents, who are not common to go and see their son play.
Sprinkling this announcement with a hint of mystery – “I don’t know what will happen while I’m there” -, the third best scorer in Liverpool’s history, with 250 goals, just behind legends Ian Rush and Roger Hunt, used his status at the club to deepen the complaint. “I don’t have to fight every day for my position because I deserve it”, he advocated, dispelling the football cliché of no one being above the team. “People will say, ‘Ah, you’re not bigger…’ I’m not more than anyone else, but I deserved my position. This is football, it is what it is.” He seemed to suggest, from what he has already done in redsbe different from other players, be exempt from losing title.
Mohamed Salah had started 53 consecutive matches in the Premier League, a series lasting 19 months. Three consecutive substitutes were enough for Mohamed Salah’s thermostat to burn his patience. “For me, this is not acceptable. I don’t understand. I think that if this happened elsewhere, any club would protect their player”, he criticized, using a typical British football expression: “The way I see things, they are throwing ‘Mo’ under the bus.” And in saying that, it can be said that Salah didn’t mind doing the same to his coach.
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“There is no relationship between us. It was always very good, now, suddenly, there is no relationship”, said the player. Until this trio of games as a substitute, the Egyptian had never stopped being a starter with Arne Slot, not even when the striker’s performance on the field, this season, wavered in line with the team, 10th in the English championship. He only has five goals and three assists, an abysmal contrast to the 34 and 23 he recorded last season: never has a player been involved in so many goals in the Premier League, where he was the one who made the most shots (130) and opportunities (86). He ended up being chosen by the league, fans, journalists and opponents as the best player of the season.
Liverpool’s abrupt drop in form is common to almost all members of the squad. Captain Virgil Van Dijk is a shadow of his authoritarian self. His partner in defense, Ibrahima Konaté, has accumulated compromising errors. Florian Wirtz, the most expensive signing in the history of British football (almost €138 million), has not been very influential. Salah follows the trend. “I’m sorry that everyone in the team isn’t in shape, but I’m the one who has to defend myself now”, he criticized. “Just five months ago I was winning all the individual awards, so why should the situation go in this direction? I’ve already done so much for this club, especially last season, now I’m sitting on the bench and I don’t know why”, he lamented.
Without hesitation, he left the accusation in the air: “It’s very clear that someone wants me to take all the blame.” It did not specify whether the target is in Arne Slot, or another leader of the reds. And he complained about Liverpool failing to comply with “many promises” what he did to you in the summer. And he accentuated the accusation: “It seems to me that someone doesn’t want me at the club.”
Mohamed Salah renewed his contract with Liverpool for two years in April 2025. The Egyptian player is in his eighth season at the club
Andrew Powell
When Salah spoke, he was never innocent
However this tantrum is received, Salah is a Liverpool legend. Ranked alongside Steven Gerrard, Ian Rush or Kenny Dalglish in the pantheon of club figures, the Egyptian cannot complain about a lack of institutional care. Upon receiving 458 thousand euros in weekly salary, his portfolio illustrates this, making ‘Mo’, four times the Premier League’s top scorer, one of the highest paid footballers in the world.
His performance over the years justified the club’s esteem, to the point that Liverpool’s management, led by the Fenway Sports Group, its North American owners, gave the “Egyptian King” exceptional treatment in its policy of not encouraging dependencies in the team with players in their thirties. That’s how, at 33 years old, the player appeared last April sitting on a gold-plated throne in the middle of the pitch at Anfield, photographed there to announce another renewal of his million-dollar contract, until 2027. “I thought I was going to end my career here, but that wasn’t in the plan”, said the striker, in his lament.
In Salah’s few public interventions, the Egyptian’s words at Liverpool always maintained a certain way of working. They appeared on the rarity of a player losing his untouchable aura, giving one or two clues about his ego, or, more frequently, on cyclical occasions when the end of his contract approached. In April 2024, he said “if I speak, there will be fire” when Jürgen Klopp made him a substitute in a game towards the end of the German’s last season, a coach with whom he won the Champions League.
At the start of last season, the first with Arne Slot, in an interview with Sky Sports and Gary Neville, former player turned commentator, estimated the chance of staying at Liverpool at 10%. Months later, he said he was “more out than in” during the contract negotiations towards that photo on the throne, in the middle of Anfield. In separate contact with journalists over these eight years in England, the Egyptian’s words were always surgical in the context that surrounded them. This case will be no different.
In the World Cup season where Egypt will play, Mohamed Salah will be worried about the sudden prospect of his playing time decreasing, even if the sample is limited to the last three matches. What if Arne Slot, anticipating the striker’s planned trip to CAN and the fact that he would be without him for at least two weeks, wanted to prepare the team to play without the left-hander? The placement of Dominik Szoboszlai, a midfielder, on the right of the attack in the place that Salah seemed to believe was rightfully his, could be a coach thinking about the collective good and preparing for what is coming. By reacting with the tone and content he chose, ‘Mo’ boosted the chances of his situation improving.
Rumors about a possible transfer to Saudi Arabia were immediately revived. And suddenly, one of the most iconic players in Liverpool’s history could be about to say goodbye to the club.
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