Mohamed Salah's Liverpool Farewell: What to Expect at Anfield

Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool farewell is set for Sunday at Anfield. What that farewell looks like is anyone’s guess.

The club’s modern icon, one of the most prolific scorers in Liverpool history, is expected to walk away at the end of the season after agreeing in March to terminate his contract a year early. The script seemed obvious: a final run-out in front of the Kop, a curtain call soaked in nostalgia.

Then came Aston Villa. And the volume went up.

After last Friday’s 4-2 defeat, Salah went public with his frustration, criticizing Liverpool’s style and demanding a return to the “heavy metal attacking” football that once terrified opponents. It was not a gentle nudge. It was a pointed challenge to the direction of Arne Slot’s team.

The fallout has lingered all week.

This was already a delicate moment. Liverpool are still trying to nail down Champions League qualification, the financial and sporting priority that underpins everything else. Against that backdrop, the club’s biggest star has now clashed twice in public with his manager this season.

So when Slot faced the media on Friday and was asked the obvious question — will Salah definitely play against Brentford? — he refused to offer any guarantees.

“I never say anything about team selection,” Slot said. “It would be a surprise to you if I did this right now, I think.”

No promise. No hint. Just a door deliberately left open.

That ambiguity piles intrigue onto an already charged occasion. Anfield will arrive expecting to say goodbye to a player who has defined an era, yet there is a real possibility the farewell takes place from the bench, or even from outside the matchday squad entirely.

Salah’s ninth season at Liverpool has not followed the familiar pattern. His numbers have dipped. The automatic pick on the right wing has found himself dropped for a stretch of games, a jarring sight after years as the team’s attacking reference point. The demotion stung so much that he accused the club of having “thrown me under the bus” when speaking to reporters.

Those comments marked the first crack in the relationship with Slot. The latest outburst has widened it.

What has not changed is Salah’s status in the stands. For many supporters, he is the face of the club’s resurgence over the last decade, the man whose goals lit up domestic and European campaigns and dragged Liverpool back among the elite. The idea of his Liverpool story ending in anything other than a full-throated Anfield ovation feels almost unthinkable.

Yet football rarely follows sentiment. Managers protect dressing-room authority. Teams under pressure protect results. And Slot, still shaping his own authority in the job, has made it clear he will not publicly bend his selection policy to emotion or narrative.

So Sunday carries a double edge. Liverpool play Brentford with Champions League football on the line and a tactical identity under scrutiny, their star forward demanding more chaos, more risk, more of the old thunder. At the same time, a fanbase waits to see if it will get the farewell it craves for a player who has given them so many nights to remember.

Salah will say goodbye. That much is certain.

Whether he does it with his boots on or from the shadows may tell Liverpool as much about their future as it does about his past.