Mo Salah has caused serious drama ahead of his Liverpool exit and there are now contrasting views on whether he should be allowed to play his farewell match at Anfield.
The Reds legend is leaving this summer after nine years at the club, during which time he has scored 257 goals in 441 appearances.
The 33-year-old has won two Premier League titles, the Champions league, FA Cup and two League Cups, becoming one of the best in the world while with Liverpool.
He will be leaving on something of a sour note, though, after a disappointing final season which sees Liverpool heading into the final weekend of the season fifth in the table.
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After winning the title comfortably last season and starting this one as clear favourites to lift the trophy again, it has been a poor return.
Salah dropped a bombshell at the weekend, after Liverpool lost at Aston Villa, when he posted a clear attack on manager Arne Slot, calling for a return to former boss Jurgen Klopp’s trademark ‘heavy metal football.’
The Egyptian wrote: ‘I have witnessed this club go from doubters to believers, and from believers to champions. It took hard work and I always did everything I could to help the club get there. Nothing makes me prouder than that.
‘Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies. That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.
‘Winning some games here and there is not what Liverpool should be about. All teams win games.
‘Liverpool will always be a club that means a great deal to me and to my family. I want to see it succeed for long after I have moved on.
‘As I’ve always said, qualifying to next season’s Champions League is the bare minimum and I will do everything I can to make that happen.’
It is certainly going to be an awkward ending to the relationship between Salah and Slot and Wayne Rooney feels the manager should keep the frustrated forward away from the final game of the season against Brentford at Anfield.
‘I find it sad at the end of what he’s done and what he’s achieved at Liverpool. It’s not the point for him to come out and aim another dig at Slot,’ the Manchester United legend said on The Wayne Rooney Show.
‘He wants to play heavy metal football, so he’s basically saying he wants Jurgen Klopp football. Now I don’t think Mo Salah can cope with that type of football any more. I think his legs have gone to play at that high tempo and high
intensity.
‘If I was Arne Slot, I’d have him nowhere near the stadium in the last game. I had it with Alex Ferguson. I had a disagreement and fallout and at Alex Ferguson’s last game at Old Trafford, he left me out of the squad for that reason.
‘He’s almost just dropped the grenade and said he doesn’t trust and believe in Arne Slot and almost thrown his team-mates who are going to be there next season and let them have to deal with that as well and put them into a position.’
Fellow Manchester United hero Gary Neville agrees that it was a hugely disruptive attack on the club hierarchy, but says Liverpool have no choice but to play Salah and give him a farewell after what he has achieved with them.
‘It’s a direct attack. Mo Salah is walking out the door and as he’s about to open it, he’s pulled the pin out the grenade and lobbed it back into the room,’ he said on The Gary Neville Podcast.
‘You have a player of that ilk, that stature, of that personality, you can never keep them quiet. They have power, they have control themselves. They have a fearlessness that means they don’t care what they say.
‘Mo Salah will believe what he said is the right thing to say for the football club, but the pain that causes is deep for Arne Slot, for his staff, for the Liverpool executives. It does really hit hard, that one.
‘He’s a player that’s loved by the fans, they’re not going to change their opinion on him, he’s achieved too much.
‘He will play in the final game because he’s done too much. The idea of Liverpool looking petty and not playing him next week and forbidding him his final farewell would cause the club serious damage.
‘They’re going to have to suck on the lemon this week, the Liverpool executives and manager, bite their bottom lip and put him in the team next week, clap him and thank him and get to the end of the season. But it’s a painful one, a comment like that.’