Mohamed Salah has gone full Cristiano Ronaldo – but Liverpool have bigger problems | OneFootball

If nothing else, Ibrahima Konate will be on his hands and knees thanking Mohamed Salah this morning.

Before Salah’s extraordinary outburst declaring his intention to leave Liverpool, Konate was the man in the headlines after his daft challenge on Wilfried Gnonto gave Leeds a penalty and kickstarted their fightback from 2-0 down.

Everybody from seasoned Liverpool fans to casual hate-watchers will have noticed Konate’s decline this season, his form so pungent that Real Madrid have reportedly backed away from signing him next summer.

And that’s part of the reason why Salah sought out the nearest journalist to unleash his thoughts on an unsuspecting Saturday night audience.

The Liverpool legend was dropped by Arne Slot for last Sunday’s win at West Ham and remained there for the draws with Sunderland and Leeds.

People now decrying the treatment of Salah as heretical and calling for Slot’s head were the ones begging the Liverpool manager to drop the Egyptian following a run of stinking form.

But, if nothing else, this week’s dropped points against teams playing Championship football last season show that Salah was far from the only problem at Anfield.

Konate’s decline is dragging Virgil van Dijk down with him, turning the world’s best centre-back into a whiny facsmile who wouldn’t put his enemy’s boot in the way of a shot.

In midfield, Alexis Mac Allister was dropped for Saturday’s 3-3 draw at Elland Road. While Slot will point to the necessity of rotation, it’s also true that Mac Allister has been a shadow of his 2024-25 self.

On the flanks, Cody Gakpo is seemingly bulletproof despite his increasingly one-note performances. We all need a break from the Dutchman cutting inside with his head down and wasting possession in the process.

Meanwhile, the goodwill generated by Florian Wirtz’s promising performances against West Ham and Sunderland was swept away in the Yorkshire gale.

Wirtz seemed completely unable to work himself into a position where a team-mate could pass to him, giving the impression he was hiding from the ball.

Or his team-mates don’t really trust him and don’t want to give him the ball. Pretty damning for a £100million player.

All of this combined has meant last season’s Premier League champions have been stepping on rakes, Sideshow Bob-style, for the past two-and-a-half months.

Salah’s incendiary comments will hog all the oxygen and dominate the discourse for the foreseeable future.

It shares many similarities with the end of Cristiano Ronaldo’s second spell at Manchester United, moaning to the nearest journalist after being sidelined by a bald Dutchman.

But Slot has already demonstrated his awareness that last season’s Salah is never coming back and tentatively looked towards the future without him.

Their £400million spend in the summer window was a recognition of Salah’s biological clock. This day was coming sooner or later, even if nobody foresaw the circumstances.

If Liverpool were sensible, they would make a huge song and dance of Salah before next Saturday’s home game against Brighton, celebrating one of the best players in the club’s distinguished history.

They would focus on finding a coherent system without him while the forward is playing for Egypt at AFCON, before quietly accepting an offer from the Saudi Pro League in January.

The end of Salah’s glorious Anfield career is now inevitable. Liverpool must translate this sadness into an opportunity to build for the future.