Mohamed Salah\u2019s public criticism of Arne Slot has produced sharply contrasting reactions. The Egypt national team and a number of team-mates moved quickly to defend the forward on social media, while former Liverpool players criticised the decision to make the issue public.<\/p>\n
The Pharaohs\u2019 official X account shared: \u201cYou will never walk alone. You will always be the best.\u201d A slew of Salah\u2019s Egypt teammates echoed the sentiment, posting their captain sitting with last season\u2019s Premier League trophy with various captions hailing him as a \u201clegend.\u201d Egypt manager Hossam Hassan joined in as well, posting on his own social media: \u201cAlways a symbol of determination and strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salah\u2019s comments followed a decision by Slot to leave the 33-year-old on the bench for a third consecutive game as the manager looked for a winning formula amid a run of poor results. Liverpool sit ninth in the standings with just two wins in their last 10 league matches.<\/p>\n
Closer to Anfield, reaction was less sympathetic. Danny Murphy criticised the public nature of Salah\u2019s remarks on Match of the Day: \u201cKnock on the manager\u2019s door, see the owners, whatever you have to do, express your frustration,\u201d Murphy said on Match of the Day. \u201cBy doing this, he\u2019s causing the team a problem and the manager a problem and making it all about him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t do it. Whether you agree with him you don\u2019t deal with it like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Owen expressed understanding of Salah\u2019s feelings but agreed with the need for restraint in public: \u201cI can imagine how you feel. You\u2019ve carried this team for a long time and won everything there is to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this is a team game and you simply can\u2019t publicly say what you\u2019ve said. You\u2019re going to AFCON in a week. Surely you bite your lip, enjoy representing your country and see how the land lies when you get back?\u201d<\/p>\n
There are immediate practical implications. Liverpool could be without Salah for up to seven matches if Egypt make the AFCON final. The forward also urged his parents to come to the Reds\u2019 clash with Brighton next Saturday because it could be his final time at Anfield, hinting at a potential move in the January transfer window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salah’s public criticism of Arne Slot split opinion: Egypt rallied while former Reds criticised him. .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,175],"tags":[1211,1304,986],"class_list":["post-4947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-liverpool","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-benching","tag-contract-standoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947","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=4947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}