Mohamed Salah has been restored to Liverpool’s squad for the game with Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday after face-to-face talks with the head coach, Arne Slot.
An improvement in relations follows Salah’s spectacular outburst last Saturday when, among other complaints, he said his relationship with Slot had broken down after being dropped from the starting line-up.
A stand-off ensued but eased sufficiently on Friday when Slot and Salah spoke at the club’s AXA training headquarters and there was enough ground given for the player to be included for the visit of Brighton.
Salah was left behind while the squad travelled to Milan for their midweek European clash
It is understood that issues still persist and they will continue to be tackled by the Liverpool hierarchy and Salah’s representative, Ramy Abbas, while the player is at the Africa Cup of Nations.
In the meantime, the restoration of Salah to the matchday squad has been described as in the best interests of the team, and it comes with Slot without a number of players through injury.
Salah had previously identified Saturday’s game as an opportunity to say goodbye to Anfield. He had invited his mother to attend in case it proved to be his last game after 8½ years in which he has established himself as one of the club’s greatest players and moved to third on Liverpool’s list of all-time goalscorers.
He is scheduled to join up with Egypt afterwards with the final of the tournament on January 18.
Slot said prior to his tête-à-tête with the 33-year-old that he did not want the attacker, who helped Liverpool win the Premier League title last season, to leave the club.
Salah said he had been “thrown under the bus” after being left out of the starting line-up in recent weeks
PETER BYRNE/PA
It has been a dramatic week for the champions with Salah omitted from Slot’s plans for Tuesday’s Champions League tie with Inter Milan after his outburst which followed last weekend’s 3-3 draw with Leeds United.
It was the third successive game in which Salah had been demoted to the role of substitute and his frustration at that situation prompted his incendiary interview after the match in which he claimed he had been thrown “under the bus” and was being made the scapegoat for the team’s poor run of form.
While Liverpool were preparing for the game in the San Siro, which they won 1-0, Salah posted a picture on social media of himself training alone. He then met the former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, now of Brentford, in London for a meal on Wednesday.
While Friday represented an important step forward, discussions have been taking place behind the scenes since Salah had been overlooked for the starting line-up for the 1-1 draw against Sunderland ten days ago.
Conversations between the club and Salah and Abbas had been held amid a backdrop of growing interest from clubs in the Saudi Pro League, including Al Ittihad who had a £150million offer rejected in September 2023.
Liverpool have won two and drawn two of the four matches Salah has not started or been involved in and Slot maintained that all selection decisions had been made by him, without inference from sporting director Richard Hughes or Michael Edwards, chief executive of football for Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool.
“I think we decided as a club — and I was part of that decision — not to take him to Inter Milan,” Slot said. “I am always in contact with them but when it comes to the decision-making of the line-up or the squad they always leave it open to me.
“That is not to say I don’t talk to them, mainly Richard not Michael, but I talk to him about so many things.
“The decision to play a player or have him in the squad — as I have experienced until now and I think this will never change — is entirely up to me.”