Will this Saturday see a shocking, sad and incredibly premature end to Mohamed Salah’s career at Liverpool, as one of the greatest players in their history could suddenly say goodbye after a truly incredible meltdown?
It feels like “The Egyptian King” is about to be dethroned and sensationally leave Liverpool, despite being their star player, becoming a Premier League legend over the last few years and still being one of the best forwards on the planet.
Why?
And how did things devolve so quickly for a club that won the league last season in dominant fashion and then added several star players in the offseason?
Last weekend, Salah fumed publicly about being named as a substitute in Liverpool’s last three games, including never seeing the pitch against Leeds before he lost the plot and was left out of the squad for Liverpool's huge 1-0 win at Inter Milan on Tuesday as a consequence of his incredible rant to reporters.
“I have done so much for this club down the years and especially last season,” Salah said. “Now I’m sitting on the bench and I don’t know why. It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus. That is how I am feeling. I think it is very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame," he said.
“How I see it now is like you throw Mo under the bus because he is the problem in the team now. But I don’t think I am the problem. I have done so much for this club. The respect, I want to get it. I don’t have to go every day fighting for my position because I earned it. I am not bigger than anyone, but I earned my position. It’s football. It is what it is.”
Imagine Tom Brady being benched by the New England Patriots. Would he be happy about it? Nope. Would he say something like this in public about it? Probably not.
For a current NFL comparison, this would be similar to the Kansas Chiefs benching Patrick Mahomes because of their poor record this season. How would he react?
That is why Salah’s public comments have caused so much uproar. You keep things like this in-house. Now you’ve created one heck of a mess and you’re watching everyone scramble around you, at a time when reigning Premier League champions Liverpool are already scrambling and struggling for wins.
Ahead of their game against Brighton this Saturday, Liverpool manager Arne Slot is noncommittal on whether Salah will be welcomed back into his squad. Slot, who looks genuinely hurt and disappointed with the situation, is one of the nice guys and has let Salah stew on his comments and put the ball in his court when it comes to reconciliation.
Liverpool is unbeaten in the four games since Salah was benched and have genuinely improved their overall performance. Has Slot made the right call? Time will tell. But right now, he has the upper hand.
Given Salah’s truly unbelievable words to reporters, it seems likely he’s played his last game for Liverpool. He will head to Morocco after Saturday’s game as he will captain Egypt during the Africa Cup of Nations tournament. He’s not scheduled to be back at Liverpool until after the January transfer window opens. The timing of Salah’s meltdown is clearly significant. If he’s going to stay on the bench, he wants out. In Salah’s eyes, Liverpool have a month to figure it out.
Most think we will never see Salah, who has been instrumental in Liverpool's return to glory and its winning two Premier League titles, a Champions League trophy and several other trophies over the last decade, in a Liverpool jersey again.
It’s sad. It’s a shame. But even if nobody wants to admit it, it has been heading this way for a few months.
Salah, 33, has been hammered by Liverpool club legends, fans and pretty much everyone else after his rant. Salah, the third-highest scorer in the club's famed history with 250 goals, was not meant to end his legendary Liverpool career this way. He was supposed to lead them to more titles and build on his wonderful 2024-25 season, as he put together one of the greatest campaigns the Premier League has ever seen.
But his drop off this season, like Liverpool’s as a team, has been stark. The reigning champs are languishing in the middle of the pack and have won just two of their last 10 games in the Premier League to all but end their hopes of back-to-back titles.
That downturn has come amid a summer of huge spending on new superstars who have been slow to gel, the tragic death of forward Diogo Jota in July, which has hit Salah and his Liverpool teammates extremely hard, and the departure of long-time star Trent Alexander-Arnold.
New superstars Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz (who cost a combined $400 million this summer) played well together as a trio without Salah at Inter Milan in midweek, and Dominik Szoboszlai started in Salah’s place on the right and is a more defensive, robust option. For Liverpool as a team, it’s working right now, sans Salah.
If Salah is to leave Liverpool in the coming weeks, will he even be allowed on the Anfield pitch against Brighton to say goodbye on Saturday? Will most of Liverpool’s fans inside the hallowed ground greet him with warmth? Or will he be lambasted for the way he’s aired Liverpool’s dirty laundry in public? The bitter divide he’s created was the last thing Liverpool needed as they continue to struggle on the pitch.
Does Salah have a point with some of his rant? Maybe.
He’s been nowhere near his best — most would say that’s been the case since he signed his huge new contract in April — but neither has the majority of Liverpool’s players this season. But it’s the fact that he sees himself as undroppable and a guaranteed starter no matter what that has upset Slot, Liverpool legends and fans the most.
Even if you think you’re irreplaceable, as all super-talented and driven athletes like Salah usually do, you can’t say it out loud. Or you shouldn’t.
Salah probably deserves some extra leeway amid Liverpool’s struggles. But with the team going through its biggest slump in a decade, all eyes have been on Salah. And he wasn’t performing. Even if he didn’t think he was the main problem, now he is.
The problem Salah has is that you can clearly make the argument that Liverpool looks like a better, more solid and balanced team since Slot dropped him. It is scoring goals and looking cohesive and fluid in attack. Hence, Salah’s rant to remind everyone just how important and special he is and how he deserves more respect and shouldn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. But he does. Even if he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the manager.
“I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager and all of a sudden, we don’t have any relationship,” Salah said. “I don’t know why, but it seems to me, how I see it, that someone doesn’t want me in the club.”
Compared to his public outburst on his contract situation last November, the difference this time is that most Liverpool fans aren’t on Salah’s side. These comments were so strong that it has probably cost Salah a statue outside Anfield. Will this be remembered 25 years from now? Probably.
But why now? Why did he decide to go all-in on the club and Slot?
Because it’s not only about Salah lashing out and making sure everyone knows he’s not the problem at Liverpool. It’s about him ending this on his terms. He knows he’s heading away on international duty with Egypt for the next few weeks, at least, and he may be sold by the start of January.
Salah wants to control the situation and, in his eyes, these comments have allowed him to do it. It also puts pressure on Slot, and Salah may think that by the time he returns in January, Slot may be fired if Liverpool’s poor form in the league continues.
But after saying what he did, Salah now doesn’t control his Liverpool farewell. If he’s not on the bench and in the matchday squad against Brighton on Saturday, then usually he would not be permitted to be on the pitch around the game.
“I said to my family, come to the Brighton game — I don’t know if I am going to play or not, but I am going to enjoy it,” Salah said. “In my head, I’m going to enjoy that game because I don’t know what is going to happen now. I will be in Anfield to say goodbye to the fans and go to the Africa Cup. I don’t know what is going to happen when I am there.”
Will Liverpool put Salah’s comments aside to allow him to say an emotional goodbye to fans at Anfield this weekend? That would make the hierarchy and Slot look weak if the rift with Salah isn’t resolved before Saturday.
Salah’s Liverpool career may have already ended the moment he opened his mouth in the mixed zone last weekend, and now he has to deal with the consequences.
If this is it for Salah, it’s a sad end to one of the greatest careers in Premier League history. Liverpool’s Egyptian King looks set to step off his throne quietly and without any kind of adulation or grand send-off from Anfield.
