{"id":511861,"date":"2026-04-04T03:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T03:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511861\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T03:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T03:36:10","slug":"slot-has-no-regrets-over-treatment-of-salah-and-insists-forward-solely-decided-liverpool-exit-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511861\/","title":{"rendered":"Slot has no regrets over treatment of Salah and insists forward solely decided Liverpool exit | Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arne Slot has no regrets over his treatment of Mohamed Salah and claimed it was entirely the forward\u2019s decision to leave Liverpool<\/a> at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool<\/a> head coach declined to divulge why or when Salah decided to leave the club as he faced the media on Friday for the first time since the Egypt international\u2019s announcement. Slot believes it should be left to Salah to explain the reasons for exiting 12 months before his contract is due to expire.<\/p>\n

It was put to Slot that he is perceived in some quarters as the \u201cbad guy\u201d behind Salah\u2019s departure in light of the player\u2019s outspoken criticism at Leeds in December<\/a>. \u201cBut that\u2019s in general at the moment, isn\u2019t it?\u201d he said of his own standing among many Liverpool fans after this season\u2019s disappointments.<\/p>\n

Slot, however, insisted he would not have handled the situation with the club legend any differently. He explained: \u201cYes [he is happy with how he managed it]. I look back at this season thinking that I made a few decisions that could have been better, but I\u2019m not talking about this specific thing with Mo. I don\u2019t regret many things I did during our one-and-a-half years together, or just longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe assumption that if he\u2019s not playing then he wants to leave \u2013 then he would have left one-and-a-half years ago [if that was the case]. I remember West Ham away<\/a> when he wasn\u2019t playing [under J\u00fcrgen Klopp in April 2024]. I wasn\u2019t here then. He didn\u2019t decide to leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe assumption is that if you don\u2019t play in these games all of a sudden you want to leave. It is an assumption and maybe it is true or maybe it isn\u2019t, but history has shown he did not do that previously and he had a great season after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salah had been benched for three games in six days in December when he accused the club of throwing him under a bus for Liverpool\u2019s terrible results and claimed his relationship with Slot was nonexistent. But the coach is not convinced that fallout prompted the 33-year-old to bring a phenomenal Anfield career to an end.<\/p>\n

Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 and Alexander Isak train together before Liverpool\u2019s FA Cup trip to Manchester City. Photograph: Andrew Powell\/Liverpool FC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only one who can talk about it is Mo himself,\u201d said Slot. \u201cYou are making the assumption that he wants to leave because he was out for six days. I\u2019m not sure what you are saying is true. I would be surprised if there\u2019s not a moment when Mo shares his thoughts about why he made the decision he made. It\u2019s not up to me to do that. It\u2019s up to him. And I would not go into all these assumptions. I would be careful with assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s head coach also denied that by allowing Salah to leave on a free transfer this summer, the club appears happy to let the forward go. \u201cThose are your words,\u201d said Slot, who could have Alexander Isak on the bench for Saturday\u2019s FA Cup quarter-final<\/a> against Manchester City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Mo has earned the right completely to decide whenever he thinks he should leave. He\u2019s done so many things for this club. He has to make up his own mind and that\u2019s what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The visit to City marks the start of a defining period for Liverpool and Slot but, despite the external pressure on his position, the 47-year-old confirmed he is heavily involved in planning for this summer\u2019s transfer window. \u201cYes I am,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I know why you ask this question.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot has no regrets over his treatment of Mohamed Salah and claimed it was entirely the forward\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-511861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}