\u201cI didn’t rate you as a player, I don’t rate you as a manager, and I don’t rate you as a person.\u201d That Roy Keane verdict, recalled from another high-profile dressing-room rupture, underlines how public rows between player and coach often force irreversible choices.<\/p>\n
The confrontation between Mohamed Salah and Arne Slot has become similarly corrosive. Salah spoke plainly: \u201cIt 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.\u201d He later added, \u201cI had a good relationship with the manager and all of a sudden, we don’t have any relationship.\u201d Those words make reconciliation difficult.<\/p>\n
Salah has a glittering Liverpool record: 250 goals, 113 assists, eight trophies, including two Premier Leagues and the Champions League, in 420 games. Yet form and figures matter to the owners. In his last 30 games, Salah has scored seven goals; in the previous 30 he scored 25. He is 33. Minutes this season also show he has not been ignored: only Cody Gakpo has more Premier League minutes than Salah (1,138 to 1,119).<\/p>\n
Liverpool have been unbeaten in the three matches in which Salah was benched: a win over West Ham and draws with Sunderland and Leeds United. The club scored six times without him. Slot\u2019s position is not unassailable either; he has managed four wins in 15 games. Still, breaking the manager would invite instability.<\/p>\n
The pragmatic option is a clean split. With Salah heading to the Africa Cup of Nations next week, Liverpool could stage a farewell against Brighton & Hove Albion and then consider moving him in the January window. His contract has about 20 months remaining and his wages have been reported at around $533,000 (\u00a3400,000) a week. A sale would free those funds and allow recruitment priorities to be advanced, including the possibility of triggering the \u00a365 million ($86 millon) release clause for Antoine Semenyo.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s tradition of collective sacrifice remains relevant. As Bill Shankly put it, \u201cFor a player to be good enough to play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me then come out fighting on the other side,\u201d Shankly said. That principle now guides a hard decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salah v Slot has left Liverpool facing a choice: a clean break and a sale in the January window this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1163],"tags":[1216,1304,1215],"class_list":["post-4964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-250-goals","tag-benching","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964","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=4964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}