Arne Slot has sent a message to Liverpool star Mohamed Salah after the forward removed all references of the club from his social media.
For the second Champions League game in succession, Salah was dropped to the bench as Liverpool ended their four-game losing streak with an emphatic 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday.
Salah did come on for a brief second-half cameo, but drew criticism after he opted to shoot from close range instead of squaring the ball for Florian Wirtz to score a simple tap-in.
The performance continues the Egyptian’s slow start to the season, which has seen him fail to register a goal contribution in his last five games in all competitions.
With just one open-play goal in the league all season, Salah’s position in the Liverpool line-up has come in for question, with Jamie Carragher suggesting that last year’s Golden Boot winner should no longer be an automatic starter for the Reds.
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And the 33-year-old appeared to send a pointed message in the wake of such criticism, as he removed any mention of Liverpool from the bios of his social media accounts.
Salah also removed a picture of Liverpool’s Premier League title celebrations from the header on his X profile, while he changed the profile picture from him in a Liverpool shirt holding the Premier League trophy to one where he is with his two children on a beach.
But addressing Salah’s quiet start to the season, Slot suggested that other factors could be at play, and said he had no concerns that the Egyptian’s poor form will go on for much longer.
‘I don’t know if it’s sharpness. It’s so difficult for me to say why this is but I think in general, players miss chances. And Mo is a human being as well,’ he told a pre-match press conference.
‘We’re not used to him missing chances let alone a few games in a row, but these things happen.
‘The main thing is Mo has always scored his goals for our club. The last thing I worry about is Mo start to score goals again because that’s what he does his whole life and that’s what I expect him to do in the upcoming weeks and months for our club.’
Slot also suggested that the lack of consistency at right-back could be a problem for Salah, after he enjoyed a superb partnership with Trent Alexander-Arnold for several years prior to the Englishman’s departure for Real Madrid in the summer.
‘Maybe his whole Liverpool player he played with Trent, so it could (be that),’ the Dutchman added. ‘But he’s been in promising positions often enough to score goals, maybe with Trent even more.
‘But in general, if you have quite a few changes in the summer then everyone has to find new connections again. Mo is no exception to this becuase he is a human being like every other player.
‘In an ideal world you play every single time with the dame team. That’s not realistic for a team that plays every three days.
‘But even if we wanted to, it was not possible because Jeremie Frimpong has been in and out with injuries a few times, same with Connor Bradley. So I think this might be one of the reasons why we haven’t been as consistent as last season.’
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