Arne Slot has sought to draw a clear line under the episode involving Mohamed Salah, saying Liverpool have “moved on” while the forward represents his country at the Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n
Salah was initially handed a punishment of one further game out of the matchday squad before restorative talks between Salah and Slot led to the player returning to the squad and appearing off the bench in a 2\u20130 win over Brighton & Hove Albion. He has since departed for the AFCON, with his representatives expected to hold further talks with Liverpool during his absence to reach a final verdict on his future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said last week, actions speak louder than words,\u201d Slot explained ahead of his side\u2019s meeting with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. \u201cWe moved on, he was in the squad [against Brighton] and he was the first substitution I made.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow he is at the AFCON, playing big games for himself and also for the country, so I think it is fair to them, but definitely also to us because we\u2019re going to play some very important games, that all the focus for him is over there for him and there should be no distractions from me saying anything about his time here at Liverpool .<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve moved on after the Leeds interview and he played against Brighton. He is there, so it is fair for that country and for him and also for us to talk about Tottenham, and other games, and for them to be fully focused on their tournament.” <\/p>\n
Despite Slot\u2019s attempt to move the story on, Salah\u2019s future remains unresolved. Reports suggest the forward\u2019s unhappiness extends beyond that benching to frustration with the club\u2019s summer transfer business, which has required tactical adjustments to accommodate struggling team-mates such as Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak.<\/p>\n
Slot acknowledged defensive issues and the wider process of evolution within his squad. \u201cThat is a question only the future can answer,\u201d he said when asked if his changes to the team have been exploited by rival clubs. He added that Liverpool conceded more chances against Brighton than in the four unbeaten games prior and defended the summer alterations as necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting closer and closer to the team I want us to be, and it has come with ups and downs, let\u2019s be completely clear about that. For me, that makes sense because [of] all the changes we made during the summer\u2014we made them on purpose, because we felt we needed to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I am completely honest, maybe I didn’t expect it to take as long as it did but, looking back and reflecting on it now, I think I\u2019ve been too positive. If you go with a new group where not all of them are completely ready to play every single game, 90 minutes in this intensity, you have to adapt and it takes maybe a bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Liverpool have ‘moved on’ from Salah situation as forward departs for AFCON. Ongoing talks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172,1163],"tags":[1211,983,1304],"class_list":["post-5212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-transfers","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-agents","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212","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=5212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}