“There’s a smell of calamity” – Gary Neville explains why benching Salah always backfires | OneFootball

Liverpool decisions rarely exist in isolation, especially when they involve players whose influence extends far beyond a team sheet.

Mo Salah became the centre of another national conversation after being left out against Leeds, and this time the reaction felt entirely predictable to one man.

Speaking on The Overlap, Gary Neville offered a blunt assessment of what happens when football’s rarest profiles are handled without care.

“There’s a smell of when these types of players… only probably like one, two or three in each league every 10 years,” Neville explained.

“If they’re left out there’s going to be some form of calamity that happens,” he added.

The former Manchester United defender pointed directly at the Salah situation, suggesting the chain of events was almost inevitable.

“They’re going to strike, they’re going to ask for a transfer, they’re going to speak up,” Neville said, before clarifying: “That was the only thing I thought about it, from it from a Salah perspective.”

Why Salah situations escalate at Liverpool

(Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

This was never about a single game or a single decision.

The Egypt international has earned his standing through relentless output and moments that define seasons, not headlines.

The 33-year-old’s response against Brighton underlined that point again, as he came off the bench to assist Hugo Ekitike’s second goal and quietly reset the narrative on the pitch.

Salah now has 277 Premier League goal involvements for us, the most by any player for one club in the competition’s history.

That level of production explains why, as Neville suggested, certain players simply exist outside normal rotation logic.

What this means for Salah’s Liverpool future

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

The wider noise has inevitably turned towards what comes next.

One view circulating has been that Salah’s long-term future may lie away from Anfield, with Richard Keys recently claiming the winger is being lined up for a move to MLS once AFCON concludes.

However, that contrasts sharply with reporting from David Ornstein, who has explained that Liverpool fully intend to keep Salah until at least the end of the season, regardless of guarantees around minutes.

The Athletic journalist outlined that our hierarchy renewed his contract at significant cost and have no intention of forcing an exit.

For now, the focus returns to football.

Salah has played, he will depart for AFCON, and when he returns, Liverpool’s challenge is ensuring that moments like Leeds do not spiral again.

Because as Neville warned, with players like this, leaving them out is rarely the end of the story.

You can watch Slot’s post-Brighton press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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