Mohamed Salah and Arne Slott’s relationship deteriorated before they both left Liverpool, with the former Red Rodgers making major accusations about the pair.
Arne Slott and Mo Salah clashed publicly last season
Dejan Lovren has stressed that Mohamed Salah was not linked to Arne Slott, insisting that things would have been very different if Jurgen Klopp was still Liverpool manager.
The Egyptian waved goodbye to Anfield on the final day of the season, ending his nine years at Liverpool. Both the team and the players fell far short of expectations, resulting in an overwhelming result.
Salah had one of the worst performances for the Reds this season, but ended up being benched in the slot to try to get the team back on track. This did not sit well with the three-time PFA Player of the Year Egyptian, who claimed the Dutchman had “thrown him under the bus”.
Salah’s public display of dissatisfaction was not ideal for the Reds manager, who will receive his marching orders at the end of the campaign, and Lovren admitted it was clear that Salah and the manager did not get along.
He told WinWin: “Their relationship wasn’t very good. Let’s just say it easily. I had a really good relationship with Klopp. It wasn’t necessarily perfect, but they knew each other very well, let’s just say that. They trusted each other, they liked each other. And Mo gave everything on the pitch for Klopp and Klopp gave him that trust. But it was the opposite[with Slott]. It’s very simple.”
Lovren and Salah maintain a strong relationship and the Croatian claimed that Klopp knew how to manage the Egyptian and his up-and-down situations. Klopp could have deflected or defended the player, but Slott didn’t give him the same treatment.
“As I said, when Mo’s performances were not good at times, Klopp knew what he had to do with him,” he added. “We had to figure out how to protect him, how to keep him even if he didn’t perform well, keep him until the next game. But like Mo said, they threw him.”
Lovren also claimed: “Maybe if Klopp had stayed another year or two he would have left in a better way. But you know… this is how it happened.”
Dejan Lovren steps forward to defend his former Liverpool teammate (Image: PETER POWELL/EPA-EFE/REX)
The former Liverpool defender also hit out at the media, claiming their treatment of Salah was “disgusting” considering he only had one bad season at Anfield.
“It’s not harsh. It’s disgusting,” he said. “Why haven’t they talked about him like this for the last eight or nine years? Tell me…Okay, after one season, he’ll be a target again.”
After Salah’s penultimate game, a 4-1 win against Aston Villa, he took to social media to claim that Liverpool needed to return to the “heavy metal football” they had played under Klopp. Slott was sacked shortly after the end of the season after finishing fifth, and was replaced by Andoni Iraola.
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