Mo Salah’s recent outburst against Liverpool and Arne Slot has seemingly divided opinion in the fanbase. I know which camp I’m firmly in…
I LOVE MO SALAH. I really do. He’s one of the greatest players I’ve ever seen wearing our shirt and I’ve seen the lot from Dalglish onwards.
I winced throughout last season when it looked like the club were going to let him leave on a free. Time and again I wrote about the club messing around with delays and negotiation tactics which would have been fine for anyone other than Mo Salah.
At this moment I don’t think I’ve been so annoyed with a player in my life.
Oh, I know. I’ve read all the views. I’ve read it as the final nail in Arne Slot’s coffin. I’ve read that he’s being disrespected and, if anything, it’s Cody Gakpo who should be facing time on the sidelines. I’ve read that he’s every right to speak his mind.
And I’m not having a second of it. The content, the entitlement, the sheer arrogance, the lack of club omertà and the timing.
I mean, what’s it going to achieve? If Arne Slot is silently seething with Mo, this little stunt is hardly going to end with hugs at the training ground.
‘Oh, you wanted to play? Oh, you should have said. Sorry!’
If anything it’ll encourage the Dutchman to go the other way. ‘If you think you can challenge me publicly, sunshine, I’ll see you after the AFCON.’
Oh, it’s brought out sympathy from some quarters but I doubt anyone in the club will be impressed.
If you’ve been average at best, haven’t been producing your usual numbers and (and this is significant for a senior player) the team is going through a very sticky patch, you don’t go bleating to the press after you’ve been dropped for just…
THREE
F______
GAMES!
Not months. Not a whole season. Not even a month. Just three games while the manager rejigs things to try to find a much-needed balance.
He’s not out forever. He’s just an option that may or may not help us find a way through this quagmire.
Three games, and he slaps his manager around the face. What’s more, he’s done it when …
‘How I see it now is like you throw Mo under the bus because he is the problem in the team now. But I don’t think I am the problem.’
I mean, he’s not THE problem but he’s one of them. And there isn’t anyone who doesn’t think he can improve. The goal at Brentford aside, he’s been a shadow of his former self though, of course, he’s not alone there.
I hate that he’s done something so breathtakingly stupid. The club should at least find a conciliatory path as he IS Mo Salah – but you don’t ever do that.
When Robbie Fowler left Liverpool after a not so secret bust up with his manager, Gerard Houllier, he stated ‘I’ll never say anything bad about Liverpool,’ because he respected the entity of it. This cry-arsing shows the exact opposite.
It needs an apology, it needs it now and it needs more work to get things right collectively. This is just pantomime played for likes and it stinks.
The club, his teammates, the entire staff and Mo’s legacy deserve much better than this.
Work together or not at all. Today I’m happy with either.
Liverpool first. Always.
