Liverpool's Mohamed Salah Future in Doubt Ahead of Brentford Clash

Arne Slot is refusing to offer Liverpool the one answer everyone wants before Sunday: will Mohamed Salah say goodbye on the pitch, or from the sidelines?

The Liverpool manager batted away every attempt to pin him down on whether Salah will feature against Brentford at Anfield, a game that requires only a point to secure Champions League football – and could double as a farewell for one of the club’s modern greats.

“I never say anything about team selection,” Slot said, sticking to his long‑held line when pushed on Salah’s involvement.

The question carries far more weight than usual. Last weekend, Salah ignited a storm with a social media post calling for Liverpool to change their style of play, a message widely read as a swipe at the football Slot has overseen this season. It landed just days before what may be his final act in a Liverpool shirt, after nine years at Anfield.

Slot, though, refused to be drawn into a public spat. Asked how he felt about Salah’s comments, he shut the door on any hint of a personal feud.

“I don’t think it is that important what I feel about it,” he said. “What is important is that we qualify for the Champions League on Sunday and I prepare Mo and the whole team in the best possible way for the game.”

The stakes are clear. Liverpool missed the chance to wrap up qualification in their last outing, a damaging defeat to Villa that left Slot visibly irritated.

“I was very disappointed after our loss against Villa because a win would have given us qualification for the Champions League which we didn’t get. Now there’s one game to go which is a vital one for us as a club.”

The tension between the club’s present and its future runs through everything Slot says. He insists that, whatever the noise around Salah, both men remain aligned on the essentials.

“We both want what’s best for the club, we both want the club to be successful and that’s the main aim,” he said.

Slot then widened the lens. This is not just about one forward and one manager. It is about a team that, in his own view, has drifted away from the football he wants to see.

“I have to find a way to evolve this team now and definitely in the summer and in the upcoming season to be successful again, and to play a brand of football that I like. And if I like it then the fans will like it as well because I haven’t liked a lot of the way we played this season.”

That last admission was striking. Liverpool’s manager openly conceding he has not enjoyed much of their football this year underlines how much change he believes is required.

Yet even as he spoke about evolution, Slot nodded towards the possibility that Salah’s future lies elsewhere.

“We try to evolve the team in a way that we can compete but definitely also play the brand of football, the style of football the fans, I, and hopefully Mo if he’s somewhere else at that moment in time will like as well.”

The line hung in the air. No denial. No insistence that Salah will stay. Just a conditional hope, framed in the past tense of a relationship already fraying.

This is not the first time the bond between player and manager has been tested. Earlier this season, Salah, now 33, was left out of the squad for a Champions League trip to Inter Milan after giving an interview in which he said his relationship with Slot had broken down. That decision sent a message. Sunday’s team sheet will send another.

Slot, though, bristled when it was suggested that Salah’s latest comments about Liverpool needing to recover their identity amounted to a challenge to his authority.

“You are doing a lot of assumptions. First of all you say that he wants to play that style and then say it is not my style,” he replied.

He pushed back by reaching for last season, when harmony and success masked any fault lines.

“I think Mo was really happy with the style we played last year as it lead to us winning the league. Football has changed, football has evolved, but we both want what is best for Liverpool and that is for us to compete for trophies, which we haven’t done this season and which we did last season.

“He and the team – and I was included in that – brought the league title back after five years and we would like to challenge for that again next season and continue to evolve the team. That is my take on it.”

If Salah’s words raised questions, so too did the reaction of the dressing room. Several Liverpool players liked or interacted with his post, a modern‑day show of solidarity that quickly became part of the story.

Slot, who has long presented himself as someone outside the swirl of online debate, shrugged at the idea that a tap of the screen carries deep meaning.

“Social media came when I was a little bit older, so as people know I’m not really involved. I don’t really know what it exactly means if you ‘like’ a post,” he said.

“What I know, and that is my world, is to see how they train and I have not seen anything different compared to the rest of the season.”

So the manager returns to the grass, the drills, the video sessions. Salah returns to the eye of the storm. And Anfield waits.

One point against Brentford secures the Champions League. One team sheet will tell its own story. Will Liverpool’s greatest modern goalscorer get the chance to walk out there one more time, or will his final act with the club be played out in the echo of a social media post and a silence on selection?