Two senior Liverpool defenders have publicly backed Mohamed Salah while acknowledging the forward’s future is unsettled. Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 offered measured support after Salah returned to the squad and helped the team in a 2\u20130 victory on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Slot recalled Salah to his squad against Brighton & Hove Albion, and the winger, who snagged an assist off the bench and made Liverpool history in doing so, received strong backing from team-mates and supporters.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk said: “We showed this week that we are absolutely united. We go forward as one,” following the win. He added: “Mo is going to AFCON and we all hope that he\u2019ll be successful there and he\u2019ll come back and be important for us for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
“The other side of it is that we all know football and we have no idea what is going to happen. I hope that he stays because he is one of my leaders and still very important for the football club. But there\u2019s more parties to this situation.”<\/p>\n
Konat\u00e9 echoed that stance and predicted Salah would see out his contract, which runs to the end of next season. He said: “Personally, no, I don\u2019t think [Salah has played his last game for Liverpool]. You saw how much he loves this club,” the France International told Canal+.<\/p>\n
He continued: “What happened with him you have to understand the frustration sometimes felt by players who have such a career, who have done so much. He is a player that everyone loves, the coach loves, he loves the coach, everyone loves each other at this club.”<\/p>\n
The comments come amid wider uncertainty. Continued interest from the Saudi Pro League and a highly publicised dispute after Salah was benched for three consecutive games have fuelled debate. The 33-year-old, the reigning PFA Player of the Year, is now set to join up with Egypt for the Africa Cup of Nations while his long-term future at the defending English champions remains unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Dijk and Konat\u00e9 back Mohamed Salah at Liverpool amid AFCON call-up and transfer uncertainty now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1211,1304,1032],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-benching","tag-contract-disputes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","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=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}