Salah is a Liverpool legend, no debate. But after the Leeds draw, he made a rare mistake: taking his frustration public. In a wobbling season, that instantly turns into a “me vs the manager” story and fans hate that when the team needs unity more than noise.
From a football standpoint, you can see why Arne Slot did it. Liverpool had been conceding far too easily, and that’s usually a structure problem: press not syncing, wide areas exposed, too many transitions.
Slot’s response was simple tighten up first, worry about stardust later. Benching Salah for three games wasn’t just selection, it was a message: nobody gets carried.
And the replacement mattered. Slot putting Szoboszlai in Salah’s role screams “work rate and control.” The games since have been less glamorous, but Liverpool have looked harder to carve open.
Even at Leeds, they created almost nothing until Konaté’s blunder flipped the whole match.
I get Salah’s emotions being dropped can feel like scapegoating, especially when narratives start flying. But this is where he misread the room. Liverpool supporters can accept rotation, even decline.
What they struggle to accept is any hint that one player is bigger than the badge when backs are against the wall.
The bigger worry is what it signals: not that Salah is finished, but that Slot is building a version of Liverpool that doesn’t depend on him. That’s the vibe behind the chaos, the shift from stardust to structure, the same tension running through Salah Storm, Slot Steel: Liverpool Marches On Amid the Chaos.
If Salah aligns with the system, he still decides games with one action. If it stays “Salah vs Slot,” Liverpool will pick the manager because that’s how big clubs survive.
