"He says what he thinks" - Florian Wirtz defends Mo Salah after dig at Arne Slot | OneFootball

Liverpool star Florian Wirtz has defended Mohamed Salah amid what appears to be ongoing friction between the Reds forward and manager Arne Slot.

Salah recently attracted headlines for a post on his social media about Liverpool needing to return to playing ‘heavy metal football’, which is something associated with former manager Jurgen Klopp.

It’s fair to say that although Slot won the Premier League title with Liverpool last season, he has lost a lot of support after a difficult second campaign in charge at Anfield.

There could now be doubts about the Dutch tactician’s future, with Salah hinting that he’s not a fan of how the team are playing under him.

Wirtz, however, has defended Salah in an interview with the Athletic.

Florian Wirtz sees no issue with Mohamed Salah post and backs Arne Slot

Wirtz has insisted he didn’t see Salah’s post as an attack on Slot, with the former Bayer Leverkusen man backing the manager even if he also admitted things need to be better next season.

“Mo has known the club for a long time now. He’s just an honest guy. He says what he thinks. This should be OK. If you want to speak, you should be able to speak,” Wirtz said.

“Of course, it was a bit of a difficult season for all of us, including Mo. In my opinion, it got made bigger than it was. I don’t think he attacked anyone.”

He added: “I like Mo’s mentality in general — how he sees things, how he works. He’s a guy you can listen to, because he has seen a lot.

“He wasn’t attacking anyone. With the ‘likes’ players gave, I think it was made too big. For me, it was just a thing that he wanted to say because he’s leaving. He wanted to make everyone in the club alert that we have to work more and do better.

“We are all anything but happy with this season. I think we can still make a little bit out of it by qualifying for the Champions League on Sunday. We have to do that. Then in the summer, we need to clear our heads and attack next season, because we have a very good squad and we can do much better.”

What next for Liverpool and Arne Slot?

LFC are set to finish trophyless this season and never really challenged for the title, so there are big questions to be asked about what to do next.

Slot could arguably deserve more time after getting off to such a strong start when he first took over, but the drop-off this season has been alarming, especially after so much money was spent on new signings like Alexander Isak, Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, and Milos Kerkez.

Only Hugo Ekitike, who is now injured, can really be called a success out of last summer’s arrivals, so changing the players this summer might not be the answer, it may be that it’s the coach who needs to change.

Xabi Alonso looked like a good candidate, but will be taking over at Chelsea, so Andoni Iraola could be a good option to consider, with Foot Mercato linking him with the Reds, even if our sources cannot yet confirm the strength of the links, while other outlets are also mostly suggesting that Slot is safe.