The Liverpool owners ‘retain complete faith’ in Arne Slot despite another poor result and Mohamed Salah’s outburst at the club, according to reports.
Salah was left out of Slot’s starting XI for the third consecutive match as the Reds drew 3-3 against Leeds United at Elland Road on Saturday.
Liverpool remain in ninth place in the Premier League table with just four wins from their last 15 matches in all competitions.
After the match, Salah launched an extraordinary rant at Liverpool for throwing him “under the bus” and the Egyptian insisted his relationship with Slot is now broken.
Salah told reporters: “I’m very, very disappointed. I have done so much for this club down the years and especially last season. 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.
“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. I don’t know why, but it seems to me, how I see it, that someone doesn’t want me in the club.”
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Slot was already under pressure over poor performances and results with rumours that the Leeds match was a crucial fixture for deciding his future at the club.
But The Athletic‘s James Pearce insists that Liverpool owners FSG ‘retains complete faith in Slot despite this latest controversy and poor recent results’.
Pearce claims that it ‘wasn’t a complete surprise to senior figures at Liverpool that Salah spoke out, but his attack on the club and Slot went further than anyone anticipated’.
On Salah being dropped from the starting XI, ‘the view within Liverpool is that it was simply a selection decision from Slot based on what was best for the team after such a bleak run of results, and that nobody behind the scenes has been trying to force Salah out. They regarded his absence from the team as a short-term fix and not a sign that he had been relegated to the role of backup.’
The report adds: ‘If Salah was trying to crank up the pressure on Slot and make his position untenable — which is the view of several people spoken to by The Athletic for the purposes of this article, with one calling it a “calculated” assault — he is set to be disappointed. The Dutchman retains the support of FSG and sacking a manager on the back of a player challenging a selection decision is unthinkable, no matter how iconic the player being left out happens to be.’
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John Terry has had his say on Salah’s comments with the Chelsea legend agreeing that the Liverpool forward has been “made a scapegoat a little bit”.
Terry said in a video on social media: “Do you think he’s been made a scapegoat or been made one by the Liverpool manager? I think he’d be the first one to say he’s been out of form this season, but I have to agree with him as well. I think he has been made a scapegoat a little bit. I think a lot of Liverpool players, including himself, have been out of form recently.
“And to leave him out – I’m not being funny, if there’s one player that can win you a game, it’s going to be him, so it’s a big call from the manager. Also, when you keep him on side, when you bring experienced players in the office and give them the reasons why they are being left out, you have nowhere to go but being shown that respect from the manager is really important.”
Terry added: “Mo Salah said there’s no relationship with him and the manager, so clearly those conversations haven’t happened, and I think Mo’s shown his frustration by coming out after the game, expressed his disappointment with being made the scapegoat.”