Arne Slot has got to go! Mohamed Salah's swipe at Liverpool boss leaves title-winning manager totally exposed as Anfield dressing room demands change

When Mohamed Salah clashed with Jurgen Klopp after being taken off in a frustrating and costly draw with West Ham on April 27, 2024, the Egyptian decided against continuing the argument afterwards. As Salah told reporters as he passed through the mixed zone at the London Stadium, "If I speak, there will be fire", so the winger wisely kept his mouth shut, and his powder dry.

Klopp was leaving anyway, meaning there was no need for Salah to risk ruining his relationship with Liverpool fans by taking on one of the most beloved managers in the club's long and illustrious history. There would have been only one winner there.

By complete contrast, Salah has had absolutely no qualms about criticising Klopp's successor, Arne Slot, in the public domain.

It was effectively the third time Salah's taken a swing at Slot this season - and while his first shot caught the coach completely off-guard, it is his latest that has done the most damage.

Refusing to go quietly

As soon as Liverpool confirmed Salah's exit well before the end of the season at his behest, it was clear that he was never going to go quietly. It's simply not his style. The Egyptian may not speak out much, but on the rare occasions he's been unhappy at Anfield over the past nine years, he's always made his feelings known, one way or another.

It was, thus, inevitable that a player previously upset merely by being substituted by Klopp would react badly to being benched by Slot just six months after firing Liverpool to the title with one of the finest individual campaigns in Premier League history.

Of course,

Media backlash

Salah's show of insubordination was roundly and rightly criticised. It was desperately poor form, utterly unbecoming of such a great professional, and it was never going to go over well with so many players who had previously represented a club where one of the golden rules was 'Never wash your dirty linen in public'.

The exact same goes for Salah's latest outburst, with

Unfortunately for Slot, it's worked, as he'll be damned if he does drop Salah for Sunday's clash with Brentford - and damned if he doesn't.

Fans standing by Salah

Despite the best attempts of Jamie Carragher & Co. to once again cast Salah as the villain of the piece, Liverpool fans aren't having any of it this time around. Indeed, there was an amusing moment during Carragher's latest character assassination of Salah on 'Monday Night Football' when a poll conducted by

Of course, Carragher and countless other pundits and journalists with close ties to Liverpool would have previously argued that the opinions of the online fanbase are to be taken with a pinch of salt. However, as was made painfully clear during the previous home game, against Chelsea, the match-going supporters have also turned against the head coach. And with good cause.

Shared sense of frustration

If there was ever any doubt over Slot's problems extending far beyond a personality clash with Salah, it's been obliterated over the past six months.

Liverpool haven't won a single game that Salah has sat out in 2026, and Slot's decision to bench him for both legs of the Champions League quarter-final loss to Paris Saint-Germain was made to look utterly ridiculous by the fact that no Red created more chances against Luis Enrique's side in spite of the fact that the forward was only on the pitch for 59 of the 180 minutes played.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the fans are happy with how Salah has performed this season - or the way in which he has conducted himself. On the contrary, they're not in the least bit impressed that a living Liverpool legend took to

However, unlike the majority of the media, they're focusing on the message rather than the medium - because so many of Salah's sentiments are shared by

Mutiny on Merseyside

Liverpool have undeniably lost their way under Slot. They used to be a tough team to play; now they're easy to beat - and that's clearly on the coach, because it's not as if opponents are coming up with new and novel ways to defeat the Reds. They're simply doing the same thing over and over again and achieving the same results via set-pieces, low blocks and rapid transitions.

Slot says he understands the fans' frustration, but says that

What's more, Slot has hardly done a good job with the new players he's been given to work with so far. Hugo Ekitike is Slot's only success story to date - and even the France forward liked Salah's post lamenting Liverpool's style of play, along with fellow 2025 summer signings Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong and Giovanni Leoni.

Of course, the fact that Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Andy Robertson also publicly supported Salah's stance was arguably even more significant - given all three have, at various points in recent months, admitted that Liverpool's campaign has been nowhere near good enough.

So, while Salah's statement was clearly self-serving and timed to inflict as much pain as possible upon Slot, he's clearly not responsible for the mutinous mood on Merseyside. The vast majority of Reds are restless - and that's because Liverpool's games have clearly been as tough to play in as they have been to watch.

Fatal parting shot

Slot,

The claim that this was always going to be a season of transition also insults the intelligence of supporters who watched their team clinch the Premier League title last April. Fenway Sports Group (FSG) didn't embark upon a historic spending spree to finish fifth.

Slot's employers also would have expected at least some tangible proof of improvement the longer the season wore on, but we've seen zero evidence to suggest that taking Salah, Robertson or Jones out of the equation will solve Liverpool's glaring problem.

The uncomfortable truth is that while Salah may have been in the wrong airing his grievances in public, everything he said was right. Liverpool's results this season have been unacceptable, their games too often unwatchable, and Slot's position is now untenable. What little credibility the manager had left has been destroyed by the scale of the support shown for Salah's parting shot.