Liverpool’s match on Saturday featured moments of promise, things to be hopeful about, and a healthy dose of things plaguing the Reds for the past two months. Yes, they looked better going forward with finishing off moves with both terrific final balls and incisive finishing something for fans to be hopeful about. The improved play of some key Reds, namely the new signings with Milos Kerkez and Florian Wirtz turning in increasingly good and consistent performances. And of course the strike force with Hugo Ekitike notching a brace and Alexander Isak coming close to claiming a winner.
But the Reds being undone, again, by a consistently fragile defense with a penchant for giving up set piece goals should be the headline. After all a penalty conceded and a goal off of a corner – the winner, no less – feels like the descriptor for so many Liverpool matches this season.
Liverpool’s day felt rather straightforward, then, following the final whistle with all of the talking points more or less wrapped up. Then Mohamed Salah entered the mixed zone.
A reason I like listening to Liverpool podcasts is the opportunity to get a view behind the veil in terms of the inner workings of Liverpool football club. My particular favorite is Blood Red which features reporters from the Liverpool Echo. One of the things the crew occasionally mention is how often certain players enter the mixed zone – a space where media members will be held as players and staff pass through from pitch to the locker rooms.
I remember the folks on Blood Red discussing this last season and mentioning that Salah hadn’t been in the zone much – which is typical for him – until he’d decided to stop after one match. We’ll discuss what that was about later, but suffice to say that Mo finding his way to the mixed zone and granting an interview is atypical. So, it would stand to reason that most of the press assembled would’ve been primed for something big.
Mo would not disappoint as he gave relatively lengthy comments outlining his displeasure at being benched and noting that he was being scapegoated for Liverpool’s struggles. His most incendiary comment, though, was his assertion that he lacked a relationship with head coach Arne Slot and that his time at Liverpool might be up.
A fiery end to a rather drab day for Liverpool.
If this bit – Mo Salah taking grievances to the press – feels familiar, it’s because it is. Back in 2022, when Mo was looking for a contract extension, he spoke to media about his desire to remain in Liverpool. To go back to the mixed zone piece from the Blood Red story, the crew were discussing that moment in the height of Mo’s contract talk last year.
Most of that talk was relatively benign but I do remember some edginess in it. And when you consider some of Mo’s post-title comments revealed a clear rub between how he was being deployed by Jurgen Klopp – he indicated that he was the one who approached Arne Slot to reduce the defensive requirements on his role in order to maximize his offensive contributions. None of this is meant to impugn Mo – rather just to note that he’s been willing to go to the press when it comes to internal disagreements.
Which is to say that perhaps the least surprising thing, to me, was Mo indicating displeasure to being benched and, perhaps, doing in so in terms that indicated he’d taken this extremely personally. This behavior – warranted or not – feels all a part of Mo’s typical thing.
Mo also, broadly, wasn’t wrong. Things aren’t working out in terms of results – Slot’s tactical approach and man management is part of that. That’s all fair game.
But what landed so poorly, to me, was the lack of awareness from Mo – both in terms of the moment and in terms of his own role in Liverpool’s poor run of form. The Egyptian King is going to go down as perhaps the greatest Liverpool player I’ll ever get to follow. But the past two months, he’s looked a pale imitation of himself: slow of thought, poor on his touches, and generally lacking his trademark sharpness. There’ve been signs of improvement over the past four weeks to be fair, but he’s not been near his usual standards.
When you look at the result on Saturday, it’d also be fair to note that Mo’s inclusion doesn’t necessarily open a path to securing the dropped points. I mean, even if Mo were on form, the team didn’t have issues scoring goals or creating chances on the day. The team’s problems came down to defensive lapses and we already know that Mo has asked for decreased defensive responsibilities.
Which really brings us to the thing: releasing this statement now, right before he leaves for AFCON and when his own contributions don’t clearly line up with a path to the team’s improvement smacks of something less than what you’d expect from not just a legend, but a leader. We make a big deal of this being a team of captains but I’d be incredibly put off if Virgil Van Dijk or Steven Gerrard had made these comments.
The team’s in a bad spot and that ultimately lands at the feet of the manager. Slot’s got a lot to answer for and is going to rightly continue receiving questions until things improved. Salah, though, has just dropped a chaos bomb that he won’t even have to answer for. Misguided, at best, it levels the responsibility of responding to the increased scrutiny over to his teammates.
One last assist by Mo before AFCON.
