Arne Slot Addresses Mohamed Salah's Future at Liverpool
Arne Slot is refusing to say whether Anfield will get one last glimpse of Mohamed Salah in Liverpool red on Sunday – or whether the club’s modern icon will slip quietly out of the back door.
Liverpool need only a point against Brentford to seal Champions League football. It should be a straightforward end-of-season assignment. Instead, it arrives wrapped in tension, emotion and a very public disagreement between the club’s greatest goalscorer of the era and the man tasked with reshaping what comes next.
Salah’s post, Slot’s problem
Last weekend, Salah went public. In a social media post, the 33-year-old called for Liverpool to change their style of play, a message widely read as a pointed swipe at the football played under Slot this season.
The timing was brutal. Liverpool had just lost to Villa, passing up the chance to secure Champions League qualification with a game to spare. The mood was raw. The forward, who will leave after nine years at Anfield, chose that moment to challenge the direction of the team.
Slot, asked directly whether Salah will feature against Brentford, shut the door.
“I never say anything about team selection,” he replied. No hint. No farewell guarantee. Just the cold, managerial line.
This is not the first time a rift between the pair has spilled into the open. Earlier in the campaign, Salah was left out of a Champions League squad for the trip to Inter Milan after saying in an interview that his relationship with Slot had broken down. A private issue became a public fracture. Now, on the brink of his exit, the same fault line has cracked again.
Champions League first, feelings later
Pressed on how he felt about Salah’s latest comments, Slot swerved the personal angle and went straight to the stakes.
“I don’t think it is that important what I feel about it,” he said. “What is important is that we qualify for the Champions League on Sunday and I prepare Mo and the whole team in the best possible way for the game.”
The defeat at Villa clearly still stings.
“I was very disappointed after our loss against Villa because a win would have given us qualification for the Champions League which we didn’t get. Now there’s one game to go which is a vital one for us as a club.”
That is the prism through which Slot wants this week to be viewed: not Salah versus Slot, not identity versus evolution, but Liverpool versus Brentford with Europe’s elite competition on the line.
“We both want what’s best for the club, we both want the club to be successful and that’s the main aim,” he insisted.
A manager who doesn’t like his own team’s football
Beneath the diplomacy, though, Slot did not hide his dissatisfaction with what Liverpool have served up this season.
“I have to find a way to evolve this team now and definitely in the summer and in the upcoming season to be successful again, and to play a brand of football that I like,” he said. “And if I like it then the fans will like it as well because I haven’t liked a lot of the way we played this season.”
That is a striking admission from a title-winning coach. The man in charge of the style of play says he has not liked much of it.
He set out the task in blunt terms: compete, but do it with a recognisable Liverpool identity. A style that satisfies him, the supporters and, he added pointedly, “hopefully Mo if he’s somewhere else at that moment in time will like as well.”
The slip of the tongue – or perhaps not a slip at all – underlined the reality. Salah’s departure is coming. The question now is whether his final act is a goodbye on the pitch or a ghosting from the team sheet.
Authority, identity and a divided timeline
Slot bristled when it was suggested that Salah’s public call for Liverpool to “recover their identity” undermined his authority or clashed with his philosophy.
“You are doing a lot of assumptions,” he shot back. “First of all you say that he wants to play that style and then say it is not my style.”
He pointed to last season, when Liverpool’s football under him delivered the league title and, crucially, a happy Salah.
“I think Mo was really happy with the style we played last year as it lead to us winning the league. Football has changed, football has evolved, but we both want what is best for Liverpool and that is for us to compete for trophies, which we haven’t done this season and which we did last season.”
That contrast is at the heart of the tension. Last year: title, trophies, a coherent identity, a smiling Salah. This year: no trophies, patchy performances, and a superstar taking his frustrations to millions of followers.
“He and the team – and I was included in that – brought the league title back after five years and we would like to challenge for that again next season and continue to evolve the team. That is my take on it.”
Slot’s message is clear: the shared goal remains, even if the paths and public statements differ.
The social media storm he doesn’t really understand
The modern dressing room lives on social media. Likes, comments, cryptic emojis – all read as signals of loyalty or dissent. When other Liverpool players engaged with Salah’s post, the noise grew louder.
Slot, 45 and plainly weary of the digital circus, kept his distance.
“Social media came when I was a little bit older, so as people know I’m not really involved,” he said. “I don’t really know what it exactly means if you ‘like’ a post.”
He went back to the one arena he trusts.
“What I know, and that is my world, is to see how they train and I have not seen anything different compared to the rest of the season.”
On the grass, he says, the commitment has not shifted. Online, the story looks far messier.
One game, one point, one farewell?
So it comes down to Sunday. Brentford at Anfield. A point for the Champions League. A goodbye, perhaps, to one of the greatest players in Liverpool’s history.
Slot will not say whether Salah plays. He will not say how he really feels about the social media blast. What he has said, loudly enough, is that he doesn’t like what Liverpool have been on the pitch this season and that the team must evolve – with or without its most famous forward.
Anfield will turn up expecting a result, and hoping for a moment. The manager will pick a team with Europe in mind. The question is whether that team includes Mohamed Salah for the last time, or whether his final argument with Liverpool plays out not in front of the Kop, but on the teamsheet.
