Mohamed Salah’s parting blow only increases the pressure on Arne Slot as Liverpool crisis mounts | OneFootball

The parting shot was supposed to come from Mohamed Salah’s left foot, not his Twitter account. The departing great’s critique of Liverpool’s lamentable defeat at Aston Villa on Friday and increasingly unsatisfactory season may have been intended to sound as well-meaning, but could be construed as self-serving. Much of Salah’s analysis rang true but the fact he said it, and now, felt like an attack on Arne Slot. The deployment of a couple of phrases indelibly associated with Jurgen Klopp further the impression it was aimed at Slot.

“I have witnessed this club go from doubters to believers, and from believers to champions,” Salah wrote. “It took hard work and I always did everything I could to help the club get there. Nothing makes me prouder than that.

“Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies. That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.

“Winning some games here and there is not what Liverpool should be about. All teams win games.

“Liverpool will always be a club that means a great deal to me and to my family. I want to see it succeed for long after I have moved on. As I’ve always said, qualifying to next season’s Champions League is the bare minimum and I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

There are various elements to unpick, including the fact it was liked by both Curtis Jones, whose own future is uncertain, and Dominik Szoboszlai, a friend of Salah’s and Liverpool’s best player this season.

Salah speaks with the authority of one of Liverpool’s greatest ever players and a cornerstone of a Champions League-winning side. Standards have slipped this season, but his own among them. Salah scored 29 league goals last year. He has seven now.

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Mohamed Salah says Liverpool must rediscover their trophy-winning identity in an apparent swipe at manager Arne Slot (PA Wire)

Klopp’s heavy-metal football was fast and frenzied. Liverpool had moved to a more considered style long before his reign ended. They have been slower again under Slot. At his best, Salah personified the relentlessness of Klopp’s side, as indefatigable as he was irresistible. Slot’s football worked well last season; when results have not been forthcoming, however, the lack of urgency has irritated fans.

Liverpool have been outrun in the vast majority of league games this year. That could be attributed to Slot’s brand of football, or the injuries that leave the regulars overworked and exhausted. But Salah’s own physical power has been diminished. When he was dropped in November, it was because he was not running back and offering enough defensively; too many goals stemmed from Liverpool’s right flank, and not their own.

As the term indicated, Klopp’s gegenpressing required pressing. Now Liverpool have become too easy to play against; it is a reason they have conceded 52 league goals this season. Without heavy-metal football, or any recognisable style to replace it, there has been an identity crisis.

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Liverpool are struggling with their identity on the pitch (Reuters)

Villa was far from the first time they have crumbled. The team Klopp christened “mentality monsters” are no more. If Liverpool can look too weak physically, they can be mentally, too. Each is a reason for a wretched away record: more defeats than wins in the top flight, more goals conceded than scored, with a lone point from their trips to the current top nine.

Salah won silverware, a Champions League, two Premier Leagues, two FA Cups and a League Cup included. Significantly, though, Klopp’s Liverpool were in contention for much more: they were beaten in two Champions League finals, twice Premier League runners-up with more than 90 points. Now they no semi-final to show for their season, are 20 points off the Premier League summit and, in his time at Anfield, have rarely felt further away.

Inconsistency is a factor. Salah could note Liverpool have won a higher percentage of games he has started; they have also lost more.

Now, as he inferred, they need to beat Brentford to be in the Champions League. The temptation is to add ‘if he plays’. The probability is that he will.

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Salah’s final game for Liverpool will be against Brentford next weekend (PA Wire)

The diplomat in Slot is likely to agree this season has not been good enough and brush off Salah’s comments. The winger was exiled from the squad for one game after his explosive interview at Leeds. It is less likely he will be banished from it for another match when that would be his last for Liverpool. At Elland Road, he said he had been thrown under the bus; in the process propelling his coach under one. Five months on, the criticism was inferred, not explicit.

Slot has spent months since a rapprochement of sorts praising Salah, while perhaps concealing his private feelings about him. A manager who was booed for taking off Rio Ngumoha against Chelsea is presumably aware he would be still more unpopular if he denied Salah an Anfield farewell. Given the lack of potency from their forwards in the last couple of games, he may need him.

But next season, assuming Slot stays, Salah’s damning appraisal could again form part of the case against him. And then it may be clear if some of their problems are eased by his departure or increased by it.