Arne Slot has explained that he dropped Mohamed Salah before the Liverpool legend’s extraordinary tirade over a tactical solution to help the champions out of their troubling run of form.
Slot spoke about his “surprise” at Salah’s outburst and has since dropped him from the travelling squad for Tuesday’s Champions League match against Inter Milan at the San Siro.
Salah claimed his relationship with the manager has broken down, but Slot pinpointed a worrying tactical trend with Salah in the team and a vulnerability to long balls as the reason for taking the player out for three straight games for the first time in his career at Anfield.
“I think as a team we struggled,” Slot explained when pushed over why Salah was dropped in the first place. “More and more with the game plans against us, I’m not speaking only about the long ball, teams do that against us a lot, I’ve tried to find solutions, that’s my job.
“I do many things, we looked vulnerable against Forest and PSV, I tried to play with an extra midfielder, against West Ham, when we won the game, then against Sunderland.
“At half-time I brought him in, then against Leeds, a 5-3-2, I played a 4-4-2 diamond, Szoboszlai off the right, Gakpo off the left, Wirtz in between, I could have played Mo off the right. I have no clue [if he has played his last game for Liverpool]. I cannot answer that question.”
Slot then opened up on his relationship with Salah in recent days, detailing how they spoke several times before the infamous outburst at Elland Road on Saturday.
“Before Saturday, the two of us have spoken, a lot, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. It’s not the way I feel, but he has the right to feel how he feels things, I haven’t felt that for sure on Saturday evening. I didn’t play him anymore.
“Usually, the players don’t like the manager much, but he was very respectful to the coaches and teammates, so it was a surprise to me that he gave the comments that he gave, but it’s not the first or last time that a player doesn’t play.
“I’m not sure if he was emotional or not, but he said something similar to what he did. We are sitting here on an evening before a big game, a big fixture for us, Inter Milan, there is only 36 hours from conceding the 3-3 against Leeds, and you can consider, I’ve tried to prepare my team in the best way possible, I thought about tomorrow, we decided what I said, not to take him to the game, but after tomorrow we’ll look at the situation again.”
