Mohamed Salah's Liverpool Farewell Uncertain as Champions League Stakes Rise
Arne Slot is refusing to say whether Mohamed Salah will be given a Liverpool farewell on Sunday – or whether one of the club’s greatest modern players will slip out of Anfield without a final bow.
Liverpool need just a point against Brentford to secure Champions League football. The emotion in the stands will be about much more than that. Salah is leaving after nine years, his departure already confirmed, yet his manager will not reveal if the 33-year-old will even step onto the pitch.
“I never say anything about team selection,” Slot said when pressed on Salah’s involvement.
It was a blunt line, but it comes at the end of a week in which the relationship between the two has been dragged back into the spotlight. Last weekend, Salah used social media to call for Liverpool to change their style of play, a message widely read as a pointed critique of the football they have played under Slot this season.
This is not a new tension. Earlier in the campaign, Salah was left out of the squad for a Champions League trip to Inter Milan after giving an interview in which he said his relationship with Slot had broken down. A star forward and a demanding coach, pulling in different directions, yet tied together until the end of the season.
Slot, though, batted away any invitation to turn Sunday into a referendum on that fractured bond.
“I don’t think it is that important what I feel about it,” he said of Salah’s comments. “What is important is that we qualify for the Champions League on Sunday and I prepare Mo and the whole team in the best possible way for the game.”
The sting of last weekend still lingers. Liverpool’s defeat to Aston Villa denied them the chance to wrap up Champions League qualification early. Slot did not hide his frustration.
“I was very disappointed after our loss against Villa because a win would have given us qualification for the Champions League which we didn’t get. Now there’s one game to go which is a vital one for us as a club.”
So the stakes are clear. One point to secure Europe’s elite stage. One game that could be Salah’s last in red. One manager determined to keep the focus on the collective, even as the narrative keeps circling back to his most famous forward.
“We both want what’s best for the club, we both want the club to be successful and that’s the main aim,” Slot insisted.
Yet he also made it clear that change is coming. For him, the evolution has to start now.
“I have to find a way to evolve this team now and definitely in the summer and in the upcoming season to be successful again, and to play a brand of football that I like. And if I like it then the fans will like it as well because I haven’t liked a lot of the way we played this season.”
That is a striking admission from a title‑winning coach. Liverpool lifted the league under Slot last season, with Salah central to that triumph, but the manager is openly unhappy with much of what he has seen this year. The message is unmistakable: standards have slipped, and the style has too.
The twist came in his final line on Salah’s future.
“We try to evolve the team in a way that we can compete but definitely also play the brand of football, the style of football the fans, I, and hopefully Mo if he’s somewhere else at that moment in time will like as well.”
If he’s somewhere else. The worst-kept secret in Liverpool’s summer is now being spoken out loud. Slot did not dress it up. He knows, everyone knows, that Salah’s next chapter lies away from Anfield.
The manager was also pushed on whether Salah’s public call for Liverpool to “recover their identity” undermined his authority. Slot bristled at the premise.
“You are doing a lot of assumptions. First of all you say that he wants to play that style and then say it is not my style,” he replied.
He pointed back to last season’s success as proof that Salah has thrived under him before.
“I think Mo was really happy with the style we played last year as it lead to us winning the league. Football has changed, football has evolved, but we both want what is best for Liverpool and that is for us to compete for trophies, which we haven’t done this season and which we did last season.
“He and the team – and I was included in that – brought the league title back after five years and we would like to challenge for that again next season and continue to evolve the team. That is my take on it.”
The modern dressing room lives online as much as on the training pitch, and Salah’s post did not exist in a vacuum. Other Liverpool players liked and commented on it, a public show of engagement that inevitably raised questions about how united the squad is behind Slot’s ideas.
On that, the coach sounded almost weary.
“Social media came when I was a little bit older, so as people know I’m not really involved. I don’t really know what it exactly means if you ‘like’ a post,” he said.
His reference point is simpler, and more old‑school.
“What I know, and that is my world, is to see how they train and I have not seen anything different compared to the rest of the season.”
So Sunday becomes a crossroads. A Champions League place to secure. A team in need of reinvention. A manager publicly staking his claim to reshape Liverpool’s identity. And a legend who may or may not get to say goodbye on the grass, under the Anfield lights, one last time.
