Wayne Rooney launched a blunt public critique after Mohamed Salah\u2019s recent interview in which the forward criticised Liverpool and manager Arne Slot. Salah\u2019s comments provoked a strong response from a cohort of pundits and former players, while John Terry offered a contrasting defence.<\/p>\n
Salah, described in the piece as last season\u2019s Player of the Year, demanded \u201crespect\u201d for his past achievements and said, “I don\u2019t have to go every day fighting for my position because I earned it.” That line was singled out by Rooney on his podcast, who said: “To have the arrogance to say he doesn\u2019t have to earn his place because he has already earned his place, you need to be at your best every week to try and stay in the team.” Rooney added, “If I was one of his teammates, I wouldn\u2019t be happy at all with what he said because this is where Liverpool need him most. If anything, he has thrown Liverpool under the bus with his words.” <\/p>\n
Rooney argued that Slot should make an example of Salah by excluding him from the travelling squad for Liverpool\u2019s Champions League clash with Inter. “Arne Slot has to show his authority and pull him in and say, \u2018You are not travelling with the team, what you said is not acceptable.\u2019” He warned that the remarks risked undoing much of the forward\u2019s work at the club: “He is absolutely destroying his legacy at Liverpool,” and, “I am sure over the next couple of years he will regret saying what he has.” <\/p>\n
John Terry, a former Chelsea teammate, took a different view and said on his TikTok channel: \u201cI think he\u2019d be the first one to say he\u2019s 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.\u201d Terry also warned against leaving Salah out: \u201cAnd to leave him out\u2014I\u2019m not being funny, if there\u2019s one player that can win you a game, it\u2019s going to be him, so it\u2019s a big call from the manager.\u201d<\/p>\n
The interview highlighted Salah\u2019s own claim that he has been \u201cthrown under the bus\u201d and that \u201cthat someone wanted me to get all of the blame.\u201d The forward has suffered a marked dip in attacking output and has been criticised for limited defensive contribution. Notably, he started both of Liverpool\u2019s home defeats to Nottingham Forest and PSV Eindhoven before being dropped for the next three matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney slammed Salah’s comments; John Terry says the forward has been unfairly scapegoated publicly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1024,172],"tags":[1304,1047,1215],"class_list":["post-4956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool-fc","category-epl","tag-benching","tag-champions-league","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956","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=4956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}