Arne Slot declared the episode involving Mohamed Salah resolved, but a fresh report suggested discussions over the forward’s future were still scheduled. The story was complicated further by a cryptic social media post from Salah.<\/p>\n
Seven days earlier Salah launched a public tirade against the club and his manager. Slot responded by leaving him out for Tuesday\u2019s trip to Milan and then reinstating him after a Friday heart-to-heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me there\u2019s no issues to resolve,\u201d Slot bluntly concluded. \u201cHe is the same as any other player. You talk to your players if you are happy or unhappy with things. There is nothing for me to talk about after what happened against Leeds after the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The past week saw persistent speculation about a possible winter move for the winger, who is due to join up with Egypt ahead of this month\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations. When asked if Salah would still be a Liverpool player on his return from the continental tournament in January, Slot replied: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot emphasised the player remains part of his plans. \u201cHe is a Liverpool player and when he is here I like to use him when we need him,\u201d the Dutch boss added. \u201cToday he didn\u2019t start as he did for a few games before but in the one-and-a-half seasons before that he started almost every game. He had the performance like you would want him to give.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was close to another assist, he was shocked to see Virgil [van Dijk] next to him in that long sprint at the end, he was close to scoring when Fede [Chiesa] assisted him. He was a threat which is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot declined to share the substance of their conversation. \u201cI never speak about what I talk about with players and I am not going to make an exception now but actions speak louder than words and he was in the squad again today,\u201d the former Feyenoord coach huffed. \u201cWhen I had to make my first substitution I brought him in and he performed as every fan wanted him to, including me, would like him to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Guardian report says Salah\u2019s representatives are expected to open talks with Liverpool executives while he is on international duty. One solid showing will not erase concerns about the ageing forward\u2019s defensive output that have been raised this season, and it remains unclear whether he will accept a loss of untouchable status.<\/p>\n
After the match Salah lingered at Anfield, joked with reporters there would be no incendiary remarks this time and \u201cbasked in the applause of Anfield long after the final whistle.\u201d Slot played down that moment: \u201cHe wasn\u2019t the only player who walked around the pitch thanking the fans,\u201d the manager scoffed. \u201cOur fans deserved that. Our players worked incredibly hard to keep a clean sheet and for the first time in months we had a bit of luck with that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot insists the issue with Salah is closed despite planned talks and a cryptic social post on hold<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1163],"tags":[1211,983,1215],"class_list":["post-5079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-agents","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5079","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=5079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}