Why Arne Slot's olive branch to Mohamed Salah may not make any difference to his Liverpool future

Mohamed Salah will have known exactly what he was doing when he gave that post-match interview after the Leeds game last weekend – but you can’t help but wonder if he might have chosen his words more carefully if he had known the reaction it would get.

We’re not talking about Salah being left out of the Liverpool squad that travelled to Milan to beat Inter 1-0 on Tuesday night. The Egyptian would surely have recognised that he was leaving Arne Slot no real alternative but to take that action.

But if Salah expected sympathy from fans and the media, he has found it in relatively short supply. Liverpool fans are at least somewhat divided, at least on social media, but a punditocracy made up of former professionals has largely moved to damn Salah’s interview as unprofessional and unbecoming.

Inevitably, a full week’s news cycle has been wrought from Salah’s interview, aided along by his inevitable omission in midweek. What was going to happen next? Is he leaving? Is there any way back from here? How can we dive into Salah’s past to get clues as to his character?

But at its heart, this is a very simple dispute. Salah thinks he should be playing. Slot does not. Salah is unhappy with his manager’s analysis and feels he has been made a scapegoat for Liverpool’s problems.

There is seldom much reason involved when a superstar’s ego gets bruised like that, and in reality, Salah is kidding himself when he says he has earned his place through his previous and extremely significant contribution to Liverpool’s successes over the past eight years.

Football is a brutal industry, particularly at the very elite end where Liverpool ply their trade – or at least, in light of their results this season, where they intend to ply it. There is no place for ‘after everything I’ve done for you’ in this game. Liverpool might as well bring back Ian Rush to lead the line against Brighton on Saturday if those are the criteria.

(That cuts both ways, incidentally. There is an amusing hypocrisy to be found in those Liverpool fans who scorned Trent Alexander-Arnold so viciously for daring to leave the club, yet also take the club’s side now they have turned the tables by dropping Salah. Unfaltering loyalty is only desirable when it suits them and only them, apparently.)

Salah was wrong to say that his past performances earned him an automatic place. What it actually earned him was an indulgence in the shape of an almost complete freedom from carrying out his individual defensive duties to anything like the work rate the rest of his teammates put in.

On top of that, Salah has always been a bizarre player with the ball: he has spent almost his whole Liverpool career putting in performances that often look like he has barely kicked a ball in his life, all row Z shots and crosses into the advertising boards.

But none of that mattered before, because more often than not, Salah would then find those moments of brilliance that few players in world football are capable of and end up with a goal or two to his name.

That has always been more than a worthwhile trade-off for Liverpool. So vast is his talent that 30 minutes of Mohamed Salah at his best is worth more than 90 from almost anyone else. He has been a goal and assist machine, and funnily enough, those parts of the game are exceptionally important to getting results.

But what Salah seemingly does not recognise – or does not want to acknowledge – is that the moment those goals and assists dry up, he offers next to nothing to a team. Until now, it had never been a problem. But the crucial words there are ‘until now’.

There is a real contradiction here. Salah’s success has been built on an almost unerring ability to shrug off setbacks. Time and again, he has put a dreadful shot into the back of the stands, immediately shaken it off, and tried again: the next one will be different.

And yet it took just two games watching the full 90 minutes from the bench for Salah to fly into a strop and start claiming he had been betrayed. Whatever has gone on behind the scenes, that is remarkably thin-skinned.

Naturally, the theories have been flying. Did Liverpool know this is exactly what would happen, and have dropped him to help smooth along an exit in the January transfer window while he still has significant market value? Is Salah actually not that upset, but sees the writing on the wall and has decided acting the victim is likely to get him a better deal elsewhere - or to get Slot sacked? Maybe a combination of all these?

Possibly. But Occam’s razor suggests the truth is rather more prosaic. Salah is 33 years old and every player begins to wind down at some point. You only need to look at his stats this season to see that has happened in a big, big way.

That may not explain why his decline has been so steep, but there is a simple explanation for that too.

Managers often talk about how much harder it is to defend a title than to win one in the first place, and after perhaps his finest season in a Liverpool shirt, the same psychology may well apply to Salah, even if just sub-consciously.

Whatever you think of him, Alexander-Arnold was honest enough with himself to know he had already accomplished everything he wanted to at Anfield and wanted a different challenge.

Salah’s situation could show the other side of the coin: as disruptive as it is for a star player to leave, it is even worse for a star player to stay at a club if his heart is not entirely in it. There are, of course, extremely good reasons that may be the case in this instance.

Slot has suggested the door may not be entirely closed on Salah – but even if they are able to smooth things over, if everyone is honest with themselves, this might well be the best time to say goodbye.

The Dutchman’s olive branch could be accepted at face value: if Salah gets back to scoring goals, of course he has a place in this Liverpool side.

But it could also just be a bit of diplomacy to help everyone feel better about what needs to be done and allow Salah to leave Anfield to a fond farewell, rather than under a dark and unhappy cloud.