Mohamed Salah has decided to leave Liverpool at the end of the season, months after a highly publicized falling out with manager Arne Slott over lack of playing time and poor form.
Arne Slott details his perception of Mo Salah’s decision to leave Liverpool (Image: This Is Anfield)
Arne Slott says he has no regrets about his handling of the Mohamed Salah scandal earlier this season and insists it was not the reason for his departure from Liverpool this summer.
Salah recently announced that he will be leaving Liverpool at the end of this season. The 33-year-old is stepping down at the end of a difficult season that saw him publicly criticize Slot for benching him. Back in December, Salah said his manager had “thrown me under the bus” by blaming the team for their poor form.
Salah, who was off the bench for the third consecutive game, insisted there was “no relationship” between Slott and him, insisting “somebody doesn’t want me at the club”. Eventually the two men mended their relationship, with Salah returning to the side, and Slott remains convinced he handled the situation to the best of his ability.
“Looking back on this season, I think we made some decisions that could have been better, but I haven’t talked to Mo about this specific thing,” Slott said in a press conference on Friday ahead of Liverpool’s FA Cup quarter-final match against Manchester City.
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“I don’t regret much of what we’ve been through together for a little over a year and a half. Again, there’s an assumption that if he wasn’t playing he would want to leave, and that’s the premise, but he would have left a year and a half ago.
“I remember he left West Ham when he wasn’t playing (under Jurgen Klopp in 2024). I wasn’t there. He didn’t decide to leave. If he doesn’t play these games and suddenly wants to leave, it’s an assumption, which may or may not be true. But history shows that he wasn’t like that before and he had a great season after that.”
“When something like this is announced to the outside world, I don’t think it would be surprising to hear that there is a lot of discussion and discussion between him, his agent, the club, myself and him before this becomes public.
“But as I’ve always said, I’m not going to change what was said between the two of us or between him and the club, but that’s not something I’m going to share.
Mohamed Salah was tired of being on the bench at the start of the season (Image: Getty)
“If he wants to say why he did what he did, that’s up to him, but I’m not the one to speak for him. You hear a lot of things being said about Liverpool, but one of the funny things about Liverpool is that almost everything that’s out there isn’t true.
“What I mean is, sometimes you see us trying to sign a player and you think, ‘What are people saying? We’re not thinking about that player, or we’re not talking about him at all.'” I think that’s a huge compliment to the people who work here.
“Even when I signed, a lot of other names were mentioned even though I knew I had already signed. So that says something about Liverpool.”
Slott also suggested that there was more to the situation that was not made public. He added: “So what appears to be true may not necessarily be true, especially when it comes to Liverpool. I think Mo has earned the right absolutely to decide whenever he thinks he should leave. And he’s done so much for this club. He had to make the decision himself and that’s what he did.”
Arne Slott talks in detail about Mo Salah (Image: 2026 Liverpool FC)
“After that incident (at Leeds) that you mention, which happens almost every day anywhere in the world when it comes to football, you know what happened after that? He went to AFCON and when he came back to AFCON he played every game.
“Here’s the answer to your question. The only person you can talk to about this is Mo himself. So I’m assuming you’re now assuming he’s been away for six days and wants to go home. But that doesn’t have to be true.”
“I’d be surprised if Mo didn’t have a moment to share his thoughts on why he made the decisions he made. It’s not for me to do that. It’s up to him. And I’m not going to go into all these assumptions, and I will, how do you say this in English? I’m careful with assumptions, yes.”
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