Florian Wirtz moved to calm a growing story around Mohamed Salah\u2019s social media criticism of Liverpool\u2019s style by explaining why he and several teammates felt comfortable publicly supporting the post. His remarks underline a dressing-room view at odds with how the episode was played up outside the club.<\/p>\n
Salah wrote: \u201cI 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,\u201d Salah wrote. \u201cThat is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot declined to comment on the post and would not confirm whether Salah would be involved in the season finale against Brentford on Sunday. Wirtz, though, offered a softer reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cMo has known the club for a long time now,\u201d Wirtz told The Athletic. \u201cHe\u2019s just an honest guy. He says what he thinks. This should be O.K. If you want to speak, you should be able to speak. Of course, it was a bit of a difficult season for all of us, including Mo. In my opinion, it got made bigger than it was. I don\u2019t think he attacked anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed on why so many players had \u2018liked\u2019 Salah\u2019s Instagram post, Wirtz said: \u201cWith the \u2018likes\u2019 players gave, I think it was made too big. For me, it was just a thing that he wanted to say because he\u2019s leaving. He wanted to make everyone in the club alert that we have to work more and do better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all anything but happy with this season. I think we can still make a little bit out of it by qualifying for the Champions League on Sunday. We have to do that. Then in the summer, we need to clear our heads and attack next season, because we have a very good squad and we can do much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wirtz also rejected the idea of internal division: \u201cThe outside world is always trying to create something between the team and the manager,\u201d Wirtz added. \u201cBut it\u2019s totally different in this building. We are working well every day with this manager and his staff. There is no thought about not being behind the manager. This is just something [talked about] on the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports in the media have repeatedly debated Arne Slot\u2019s future, but substantial coverage has concluded he will remain. Liverpool are reportedly set to reunite Slot with his former set-piece coach Eti\u00ebnne Reijnen, who has told colleagues at Feyenoord he will join ahead of the 2026\u201327 season. Reijnen, who played alongside Slot at PEC Zwolle and later coached at Feyenoord, helped his side concede just 17 goals from dead balls across three seasons, the best record in the division. Only PSV have scored more from set pieces over the same period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Florian Wirtz said: “Mo has known the club for a long time now,” and defended Salah’s post and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,175],"tags":[1505,1081,299],"class_list":["post-13992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feyenoord","category-liverpool","tag-accountability","tag-adaptation","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}