Liverpool manager Arne Slot on Mohamed Salah’s outburst: ‘There’s always a possibility to return for a player’

Salah, who had been benched for 3 matches before his eventual outburst, had said that while he had a good relationship with Slot earlier, now they shared no relationship. Reacting to that, Slot said that’s not the way that he felt, adding that Salah has the right to feel how he feels things.

“That’s not the way I feel, but he has the right to feel how he feels things. I haven’t felt that at all until Saturday evening, for sure, because I think when I didn’t play him anymore, usually players don’t like the manager then that much, but he was very respectful to my staff members, to his teammates, and he trained really hard,” he said.

“So to an extent it was a surprise for me that when I heard after the game he gave the comments he gave. But it’s not the first and not the last time that when a player doesn’t play — I’m not sure if he was emotional or not — he says something similar to what he did. But I think my reaction to that is also clear and that’s that he’s not here with us tonight,” he added.

Salah has won two Premier League titles and the Champions League during a trophy-laden eight years at Anfield. He signed a two-year contract extension in April just before he received his second Premier League player of the season award. He is due to go to the Africa Cup of Nations this month with Egypt before the transfer window opens in January.

Slot said the outburst doesn’t necessarily signal the end of Salah’s time at the club.

“I’m a firm believer that there’s always a possibility to return for a player,” he said. “I can leave it with that I think.”