Arne Slot should drop Mo Salah for PSG to preserve (and maybe enhance) Liverpool legacy | OneFootball

The weeks following Mohamed Salah’s announcement that he will be leaving Liverpool at the end of the season have featured questions as to where he might rank on an all-time legends list and praise for player and club for reaching an amicable agreement over what many believe to be his legacy-preserving exit.

As if Jamie Carragher’s infamous “leave the football before the football leaves you” Casemiro slam pertained to him, Salah will leave following comfortably his worst season for Liverpool, in which any cliched reference to legs going or losing yards of pace are faithful assessments of his performances amid suggestions that he just doesn’t have enough fight left in him.

Arne Slot insists Salah”nothing left to prove” at Liverpool. He’s won six major trophies at the club, including two Premier League titles and the Champions League. Only Ian Rush (346) and Roger Hunt (285) have scored more than his 255 goals for the Reds. He’s scored 30+ in five of his six seasons. As Slot says, Salah “will always leave this club as a legend.”

That status would have been preserved even if his hissy fit in December after he was “thrown under the bus” by Slot and Liverpool had led to an early, acrimonious departure. A petulant legend is still a legend.

But after heeding Steven Gerrard’s advice to “go on your terms, the right way”, the preservation of Salah’s legacy – different to his status as a legend in that it’s possible for a legacy to be sullied – is now just as much in the hands of Slot than Salah himself.

Any hope that his exit revelation would act to relieve the pressure and allow Salah to revert to devastating type was dealt a blow through his display against Manchester City.

He dawdled on the ball before dragging a shot horribly wide with the game goalless and spurned another chance in the second half before his tame penalty was easily saved by James Trafford. No-one fancied him to score after looking like a “shadow” of his former self, as has been the case for the whole of this season.

According to Roy Keane, it could all “turn a bit nasty”.

“Say they come off in the last month or two and they don’t do anything in the cup matches, and he’s not at his best, they’ll be saying ‘he’s already left the club, his heart’s not in it’,” Keane said on Stick to Football.

“I think that can turn a bit nasty, so this idea of a parade – it’d be different if they were like Arsenal and they were top of the league, you’re going to win the league like last year, but I’m not sure about the timing. I don’t know why you don’t just wait until the end of the season and go ‘I’ve done my bit’.

“Liverpool have a lot on their plate, don’t turn it into another circus act, like last year got a bit silly towards the end of the season, and it can turn the other way, fans can turn on him if he’s not at it.”

Anyone but Salah would be dropped for PSG after his display against Manchester City and the danger his presence in the team poses to Liverpool in the Parcs des Princes.

Whether it’s Bradley Barcola or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia starting on PSG’s left wing, Joe Gomez or whoever’s playing at right-back for Liverpool is going to need all the help they can get against them and Nuno Mendes bombing on beyond them that won’t be provided by Salah.

He will be waiting for a counter-attack that may never come on the basis of how PSG destroyed Chelsea and few would bank on him making the most of on current form even if it does.

The best way of Liverpool causing an upset and making it through to the Champions League semi-finals will be to shut up shop away from home before bringing PSG back for a Special European Night at Anfield with the game still in the balance.

It’s there, on home turf, with the crowd at fever pitch and singing his song that Salah can win this tie for Liverpool. In Paris he is the means for Liverpool to lose it.

“Hopefully he can make his legacy even more special in the upcoming weeks and months where we still play for something special,” Slot said, echoing the thoughts of Liverpool fans around the world.

There is nothing they would want more than to see Salah’s already glittering Liverpool career enhanced through scoring big goals in his last Champions League games for the club; no doubt there would be a tinge of sadness and frustration at him being denied that opportunity in the Paris des Princes.

But they, like Slot, will know deep down that Liverpool’s best chance of progression and therefore the best chance of Salah boosting his legacy in what remains of this season is through him sitting out a leg in which there’s a strong possibility of things “turning a bit nasty” for him and Liverpool if he plays as a detrimental bystander.