Breaking news! Mohamed Salah, star striker of Liverpool FC, showed up for training with the English football champions on Monday morning! What sounds like a given was actually news after “one of the most explosive interviews of the Premier League era,” as the BBC called Salah’s performance as an insulted liverwurst. The “Egyptian king” feels driven out of his kingdom – and that’s why he set the entire club on fire.
Before Florian Wirtz and Co.’s important Champions League game against last year’s finalists Inter Milan on Tuesday (9 p.m./DAZN), there was and is only one topic: Salah. The British media quoted up and down his “bombshell interview” (Liverpool Echo) from Saturday evening, in which he described his relationship with team manager Arne Slot as broken and complained: “It feels like the club has thrown me under the bus.”
On the island you could read about “rebellion”, “civil war” and “inferno”. Even the New York Times asked, “What have you done, Mo?” The man who celebrated his contract extension on a golden throne at Anfield Road in April has put “his” club to the test.
“Salah is destroying his legacy”
And miscalculated? The question Salah asked very clearly between the lines: “Him or me?” Liverpool apparently wants to answer in favor of coach Slot. The Reds, it is said, are open to giving up the noble reservist. The team owner Fenway Sports Group has “complete confidence” in Slot, reported The Athletic, and firing the coach because of the scandal is “unthinkable.”
This is also the tenor of the “pundits”, the experts, by whom Salah also feels betrayed. “Oh, Mo Salah,” club legend Michael Owen wrote on X, “I can well imagine how you feel,” but the 33-year-old should have “bite his lip.” Iconic striker Wayne Rooney was more explicit in his podcast. “Salah is destroying his legacy, across the board,” he said. Slot must remove him from the squad, Salah “did everything wrong. I’m sure he’ll regret it at some point.”
A replacement is said to be available in attacker Antoine Semenyo from AFC Bournemouth, and the Saudi club Al-Hilal, trained by former Inter coach Simone Inzaghi, offers a refuge for Salah. The North American MLS is also being traded as an option.
After Saturday’s league game against Brighton, Salah will definitely leave Liverpool – for the African Cup. While Salah spoke about a possible final farewell, Egyptian national coach Hossam Hassan emphasized that his captain would “make history” at the national tournament – and also at Liverpool FC. That would be again: breaking news!
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