Manager had enough on his plate already, without having to deal with a departing club legend, a personified Anfield, club glory in footballing boots
Well if there were a list of things Arne Slot did not want as this most rickety of Liverpool seasons spluttered and creaked its way to an agonising stop, we can be sure it would include his star player and club legend sparking a near mutiny one game to his departure.
Except it probably would not be on that list because Mohamed Salah’s crushing social media post was quite unexpected, Instagram rage-bait, pain as content, Mature Carolina Reaper secretly packed into meatball soup.
Nor did it seem to have any particular purpose beyond utterly damning Slot. “I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies. That is the football I know how to play…” Ok, but also, I’m leaving the club after this game this weekend.
Salah’s second outburst in six months has turned Slot’s season from ugly to uglier. The background, in case it’s not quite clear: after Liverpool’s 4-2 collapse at Aston Villa on Friday, Salah took to social media the following morning and questioned the direction of the club, challenged its footballing identity, ripping Slot’s authority to shreds without even mentioning his name.
That post has now also been “liked” by several Liverpool players, past and present. Dominik Szoboszlai, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Wataru Endo, Giovanni Leoni and Harvey Elliott all liked it. Curtis Jones and Hugo Ekitike commented with an applause and a handshake emoji respectively.
Andy Robertson, who is leaving with Salah this season, also liked it. Then there were Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jordan Henderson, Roberto Firmino, Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz, a cohort of winners at the club, all signalling their approval. It looked alarmingly close to a collective vote of no confidence.
Slot had enough on his plate already, without having to deal with a player mutiny, like dealing with discontented fans who booed the coach and the squad at Anfield after the anaemic performance against Chelsea.
The Dutchman will have a hard time turning fans around. He arrived at Liverpool with the impossible task of succeeding Jurgen Klopp, a managerial figure with serious emotional connection with the club, a cultural symbol, a modern Merseyside messiah. After winning the league in his debut season, Slot has failed to back it up with a performance worth backing. Nineteen defeats in all competitions this season, 52 goals conceded in the league, the most at the club in a 38-game season.
Not to mention the tactical failures. The team have looked too lost too often on the pitch. Can Slot turn it around? Liverpool’s hierarchy certainly think so, if they let the highly rated Xabi Alonso join Chelsea. But it’s one thing needing to turn fans back onside. It’s something completely different if players in the dressing room have lost faith in your style of play, led by a departing club legend, a personified Anfield, club glory in footballing boots.
Slot may have no choice but to suffer the Egyptian one more matchweek and play him in Liverpool’s last game against Brentford. Disciplining Salah by dropping him, as Wayne Rooney unhelpfully suggested this week, would only likely inflame tensions. Neither fans nor the past and current crop of players would tolerate leaving out a departing heavyweight like Salah, on the day he is set to bid goodbye to Anfield. It accomplishes nothing, and it poisons the mood beyond salvation.
Salah is leaving. That is Slot’s ultimate relief. From pre-season he can try to reclaim his authority. But regardless of what follows in the Dutchman’s tenure at Liverpool, Salah has succeeded in making the job as difficult as possible for Slot.
