The Football Reporters: What next for Mohamed Salah?

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0:35Mark Ogden:Welcome to the Football Reporters. Mohamed Salah shot Liverpool with his comments after losing to Leeds. Liverpool reporter Beth Lindop joins us from Milan, where she's watching Inter play Liverpool on Tuesday, to wonder what happens next for Arne Slott and Salah. And James and Rob break down the weekend's Premier League action as Man City close the gap in the title race to two points behind Arsenal.

0:56Mark Ogden:So, welcome into an emergency edition of the Football Reporters. We've got Beth Lindock, live from Milan. I'm back in the north-west of England, having spent a lot of my day in Liverpool, which is what we do, as we know, Beth. But it's been quite a dramatic day on Merseyside, following a dramatic evening in Leeds on Saturday. There's a situation around Mo Salah. He's not travelled to Milan for the Champions League game. We all know why, because Beth was one of the reporters at Leeds at the weekend who reported on his bombshell interview, which said that his relationship with Arne Slaughter's broken down, accused Liverpool of throwing him under the bus, basically left his future of the club hanging by a thread.

1:30Mark Ogden:So, Beth, let's go back to the beginning. What happened at Leeds and why is Mo Salah so upset about his situation at Liverpool right now? Yeah, well, I mean, it was pretty extraordinary that Liverpool twice surrendered an advantage, dropped more points, ended up in the midst of a six-goal thriller and yet the most interesting storyline came from a player who wasn't even involved. And yeah, Mohamed Salah, after the match, as we know, he doesn't speak to the written media too often. He's a man of a few words and quite often when he does speak to the media, it's because he has something that he wants to say.

2:02The last time that he spoke to the media was back in November 2024, when he was unhappy with his contract situation and he came out and said infamously now that he was more out than in. And ultimately that served as a prelude to him getting the contract that he wanted at Liverpool, extended his stay by another two years now what he said on Saturday night you know we don't know at this moment in time but it could well have the opposite effect because he came out and one of my one of our colleagues was in the in the mix zone at the time and Salah actually made a point of saying I'm just going to go and get a shower and then I'll come back so it wasn't just sort of a heat of the moment kind of thing he sort of obviously decided that he was going to say something on on Saturday night and and it was along the lines of he was very very unhappy he'd obviously been dropped for three games in a row first time in his career that that has happened to him and he said as much and and yeah I mean there was so many things so much to dissect it's so rare that you hear a player a Premier League player speak in the way that he did on Saturday night he basically said his relationship with Arna Slott has broken down he said promises have been broken by the club in terms of when he signed his contract to the role that he has now he said that someone was throwing him under the bus someone at the club wanted him out I mean it's just take your pick for the biggest lines to come out of that story but yeah I mean the reaction in the media room on Saturday night was just one of pure disbelief and you know I know obviously you were flying back from from the states at the time and it reached you pretty quickly as well and such was what a huge story it is.

3:33Mark Ogden:Yeah well I was I was waiting to board at Dulles Airport in Washington and yeah Mo Salo is the talk of Washington Airport shall we say I just think it's worth to explain to people to viewers and to fans who are watching because what happens after a game is that so it's called the mix zone so basically you don't just hang around dress rooms like we used to do when i started out back in the day it's now a case of where it's more it's a more kind of sterilized environment where basic players are supposed to walk past you when they leave the dress room supposed to walk past you on the way to the bus but it doesn't really work like that nowadays is a case where teams will often select one or two players to speak to the media so i you know i've been out of liverpool this morning and i spoke to somebody who said that most salad wasn't the designated speaker on Saturday, as you can imagine.

4:11Mark Ogden:It's very rare for an unused sub to talk to the media, but there was a sense that the phrase I was told, that they could smell something was up. And as you said, Beth, that Mo Salah, when he speaks, it's often kind of a strategic decision. It's something that he does for a reason. And I guess that when people were waiting in the mix zone, they're expecting, I don't know, to speak to Hugo Eketike for his goals or Virgil van Dijk, who's been speaking quite a lot this season. And then, obviously, you hit the jackpot when Mo Salah decides he wants to get something off his chest. And, you know, get off his chest, he certainly did.

4:38Mark Ogden:now we know that he's been left out of Liverpool's traveling squad to Milan today the the the statement of this wasn't wasn't a statement I guess the position that Liverpool have got right now is that he will be out of the squad for a short period of time now as you know most Salah you've got the African nations next week I think next Monday to take part in Egypt's campaign and he could be away for a month so for me it seems fairly obvious that he won't play against until we know that and I don't think he's going to play against Brighton Anfield on on Saturday that would seem unlikely in the sense that one he hasn't been playing recently and two you wouldn't just kind of give away a place in the team for players that have been playing but also you turn into a massive circus so this could be Mo Salah's last game for Liverpool so does he deserve the right to have a farewell having done what he did or should Liverpool just say just go away for now Mo let's see how things stand when you get back or is he not coming back that's a big question to ask I'm sorry Beth but you know that's what I mean it is a really really difficult question to answer and I mean even a few weeks ago it would have been inconceivable that we will be at this point and that is the sort of ludicrous thing about this is yes he's been dropped for three consecutive games but prior to that he'd started I think it was 53 Premier League games in a row he'd started all 12 previous games in the Premier League this season so you know it's not the likes of Federico Chiesa who has barely been involved or you know a young player who's not getting the minutes once he's still been you know he's played a huge amount of minutes still this season he's still been a huge part of this Liverpool team and this Liverpool squad and I think the thing with Mo Salah is you know we're viewing very much as being this superstar and he's sort of superhuman and because he doesn't talk to the media so often he can be a little bit enigmatic sometimes but I think he is actually quite an emotional guy and I think you know we've seen that at times this season on the pitch particularly on that opening day obviously we were both there when he he broke down in tears up in the in the midst of all of the stuff about Diogo Jota and the attributes to him so I think he's an emotional kind of player and footballer and I think there was a lot of noise not from Liverpool but externally you know in the weeks leading up to him being dropped at West Ham people saying well Mo Salah is the problem and Mo Salah is this and Mo Salah is that and I think he has maybe listened to that and as much as he's sort of lashed out at the club you know I think the wider talk about him has really hurt his ego and I think that is is a big part of why he's reacted in the way that he has now the question over whether he will leave in January, I think very much hinges on how much of that that he said on Saturday was just pure frustration and emotion.

7:09And maybe when the dust settles, he thinks, you know what, probably the biggest option for him now outside of Liverpool is Saudi Arabia. We know that the reason he signed his contract extension at Liverpool was because he still believes he can perform at the top level. So he might well think, well, actually, you know, if the option is Saudi or Liverpool, then I'm going to stay and fight at Liverpool. But obviously the sense on Saturday night was it was hard to see him working under Arna Slott again. Now, as long as Arna Slott continues to be the manager, which we anticipate will be that he still has the club's full backing by all accounts.

7:44So that might be a factor. Maybe there's a question he goes to AFCON and he sees what Liverpool's form is like, what Arna Slott's future is like when he comes back in January. But you were obviously at the training ground this morning. him what was the what was the mood like in in training because obviously i imagine it was a pretty full house to sort of see what was what was going to happen yeah so obviously we're told

8:05Mark Ogden:to get there for 11 45 for the start of training he didn't actually come out until 12 01 so it's quite a bit of a way you know building up the anticipation i guess but when he did come out it was all very normal you know he came out with hugo eketike there was no sense of him you know walk at the back of the park he didn't have a kind of dramatic entrance late and he didn't you know make a big scene he just he walked out with eketike joined in dominic shaboshlai gave a bit of a playful hug and they just got down to training did a couple of drills with Shabot Slayer and then went into a more small-sided uh preparation game it was interesting that Arne Slott and his coaches that they were kind of quite detached from it all there was no sense of them being in with the players they were kind of quite a way away but I guess that's what coaches do they stand back and they observe don't they don't actually get involved with the minutiae so you know if you didn't know what the situation was that would have looked like a very normal training session today but at the point at the time we didn't know whether Mo Salah was going to be on the plane to Milan or not because you know the situation was very much of the balance I was told that meetings had gone on this morning and we're going to go on after training to decide exactly what they would do because you know on the one hand does it look does it make Harnes not look weak by taking Mo Salah well potentially but then you know that could be a sense of why take the circus with you but equally if you're a strong manager who believes in your your squad and believes in your ability to manage it you would take Mo Salah and say right you said what you said but I'm the boss you're coming with us if you don't like it tough but you are coming with us now that hasn't happened they decided to take him away and you know tone down the the focus but you know two hours time Beth you're going to be in a press conference with Arnie Sloan this issue is not going away it's not a case of well Mo Salah's not here let's not ask about Mo Salah I 100 % guarantee that the first question will be Mo Salah and that's fair enough because you said before about you know how somebody told me that the the word they use at Liverpool about Mo Salah he has a mystique and he likes to cultivate that mystique he likes to be a little bit mysterious a little bit detached a little bit only doing things that only Mo Salah would do he's a special player and I you know I've seen it before in other players I mean Cristiano Ronaldo is the obvious one to me the superstar players they are treated differently because they deliver differently you know Mo Salah has been Liverpool's talisman for seven eight years so he said at the weekend that he's earned the right to play well he hasn't earned the right to play nobody ever earns the right to play it's all based on what you do in your last game but he certainly earned that kind of status as a huge player but I think he kind of overplayed it I think he he overplayed his hand a little bit because he's not been playing fantastically well this season I think is it nine goals his last 33 games going back to February his kind of form has dipped I think maybe that's why he's done what he's done there because maybe he accepts that do you know something a move to Saudi Arabia might be quite an appealing move because maybe he's not well he isn't the future of Liverpool is it they've signed Florian Verts Alexander Isak Hugo Akatika that's the future at Liverpool.

10:45Mark Ogden:And it's not started particularly well, but I always thought that when Salah vacates the stage, it will be when Florian Virch finally gets that kind of freedom he wants. And maybe that situation has come now. And Mo Salah's thinking, well, yes, he might be becoming yesterday's guy. He's not going to be playing all the time. He's not enjoying it as much as he was because Darwin Nunes and Luis Diaz out there to do his running. We know that the tragedy around Jota has affected him as well. So six months ago when he signed the contract, it was a different scenario. But now, and also we can't forget that sometimes when people say he's going to go to Saudi Arabia or any player it's like well that that's almost like the last stop in your career but what you have to remember in Mo Salah is that he's a massive star in that part of the world you know I went to Saudi Arabia during the World Cup in 2022 to do a piece ironically on Newcastle who were playing there at the time and the people I was speaking to in Saudi were I was kind of surprised I thought it was all about Ronaldo and this is before Ronaldo actually went there it's all about Ronaldo and Lionel Messi but no I was told the two biggest players in Saudi Arabia are Paul Pogba and Mo Salah and they were obviously both you know practicing Muslims and obviously Mo Salah from that part of the world is a massive star.

11:45Mark Ogden:So moving to Saudi Arabia for Mo Salah may not be what people perceive it to be in the West in a sense of a downward curve. It could be he's going back to a place where he feels comfortable, he feels surrounded by people who absolutely love him. Just like Liverpool, he will be loved in Saudi Arabia as much as he is at Anfield. So it's not a downward step for Mo Salah apart from the fact it may be in the sense of quality, but moving to Saudi Arabia for Mo Salah will be a huge career move so maybe maybe he thinks it's the time and i guess from liverpool's perspective if they get the chance to you know offload more salad for for a fee in january then you know they'll be saving about 30 million pound in wages if they get 20 30 million pound from as well that for me that that they're just going to use that to sign on to an semenyo and away you go you know mark is absolutely right i think the saudi arabia links the way that that he is perceived over there is very different to the culture that that we have over here the perception that we maybe have over here of the Saudi Pro League I think if he were to go over there it would be a very very different experience than than what we might anticipate at this moment in time now as Mark said I'm in in Milana at the moment in in my hotel getting ready to to go to the press conference this evening and I think the difficulty for Liverpool is you know the the stance that they have at this moment in time is that they're taking Mohamed Salah out of the team temporarily but the question is when does that temporary period end which is the big question for Liverpool.

13:14We know that Mo Salah isn't going to be involved after next week anyway because he's going away to AFCON and then beyond that we don't know what comes next. Does he come back in January? Does he not? There's so many questions for Liverpool to answer and they're sort of having to kick the can down the road a little bit at the moment because, you know, they don't 100 % know what the long-term future looks like for Salah and, you know, for Arnazsla as well. As much as they're backing him at the moment, results haven't been good enough. So there are so many questions for Liverpool to answer over the coming weeks and months.

13:49Mark Ogden:I mean, obviously you mentioned you off to Sianni Slott in a couple of hours. And, I mean, a question he will be asked, it could be the first question, has Mo Salah played his last game for Liverpool? And you're right by what you're saying about the Brighton game. I think it's impossible for him to be involved in that game. So, you know, Liverpool have, you know, dealt with this by not, dealt with it in some ways by not taking it to Milan. But like I said, Mo Salah is still going to be the topic of conversation. So I'm just, before we wrap up, Beth, what do you expect the press conference to be like?

14:17Mark Ogden:You sit through a lot of Arnie Slott press conferences. Is it going to be a case of, you know, move on to the next thing? How is Curtis Jones going to fit into the scene? Is it all going to be Mo Salah? So that's due to take place at 6.45 UK time. So I'll be heading over there very shortly to the San Siro, where I imagine there'll be plenty of press. Maybe some of them who hadn't even anticipated travelling have maybe made a few last-minute arrangements to get out there for this evening's press conference. And yeah, as Mark said earlier on, the fact that Mo Salah isn't there does not mean that Mo Salah isn't going to be the main topic of conversation.

14:56Mark's asking me here, we'll sort of say that he's played his last game. I very much doubt it. I think Arna Slott is someone who likes to be quite laid back, quite genial. He's not someone who likes to get dragged into all of these big storylines. So I think Arna Slott will probably be quite keen to downplay this as much as possible, not least because this is actually a really big game for Liverpool. They lost 4-1 at home to PSV last time out. That was a game that they probably banked on winning pretty comfortably. So the fact that they didn't do that means that they now genuinely need points from these last three games away to winter Milan away to Marseille in the new year and then at home to Carabaugh to ensure that they get into the into the top eight so it's um it's yeah it's going to be a crazy couple of days I think for Liverpool there's going to be so much chatter about about Mo Salah but Liverpool still have a

15:46Mark Ogden:job to do at the end of the day well listen I know that Milan can be quite tricky to get to the San Siro certainly this time of night so you've got two hours better to get from your hotel to the Sancero for a big press conference so we're going to let you go and you can keep up to date with all the Mo Salah machinations and everything at Liverpool from Bethel for the next couple of days and on ESPN.com.

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16:50James Olley:Well, let's move on to the Premier League reaction from the weekend. James, you were at Villa Park for Arsenal against Aston Villa. We're going to go through this in kind of chronological order, obviously, because Arsenal played and then City played. Arsenal was the early game, you were there. First, what did you make of the result, the performance, and also the manner of which it all happened?

17:09Rob Dawson:Well, I think to some extent they've had this come in. There's a couple of contexts you can put this in, and one of them is sort of more positive and one of them is a bit more negative. To be kind to them, this has come at the end of a two-week period in which they've played Tottenham, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Brentford and then go to Villa Park in the early game in that Wednesday night, Saturday lunchtime turnaround that Jurgen Klopp used to absolutely despise. So you can have some sympathy with them feeling a little bit jaded. And I wrote on Wednesday after the Brentford game that I thought they looked a bit ragged in the second half and a couple of the players, people like Detland Rice, who just played so much, just looked like they were blowing quite hard at the end of that game and not quite out on their feet, but just the pace of the schedule had caught up with them a little bit.

18:00Rob Dawson:And I thought we saw that in the first half in particular at Villa Park, where obviously they went behind. They were 1-0 down at half-time. Arteta makes two changes at half-time, brings on Jokeres and Trossard, and they look great for sort of 20 minutes. they obviously they equalize everything's going down the right sack is just a constant sort of menace down that right hand side causing Villa all sorts of problems and you think okay they you know they've responded here they're going to go and win the game and then the sort of third phase of the match the final kind of 15-20 minutes Villa wrestled back control of it and we should say Villa of course played in midweek as well so that you know they had plenty of football in their legs as well but they just wrestled back control the initiative and and the winning goal which just a fantastic moment just to to be in Villa Park for that I've not heard a stadium that loud for some time but in many ways the the manner of that winning goal sort of epitomized the whole afternoon which is sort of Villa kind of trying chipping away throwing everything out and never giving up and finally the ball falls in the right place for Emi Bendy and he curls it into the net and the place goes crazy.

19:11Rob Dawson:So, you know, it has felt as though this has been coming for Arsenal for a little bit of time because of the schedule, but also because of the injuries. It was the sixth different centre-back partnership they've had this season. And we all know when Saliba and Gabriel aren't playing, they're not as solid as the back. That's not a criticism of the players who come in. It's just that those two are the best centre-back pairing in the league at the moment. And it's just been a shift, I think, away from when the Fulham game popped into my mind sort of about six weeks ago where they went 1-0 up again.

19:45Rob Dawson:That was a trossard goal that day, sort of early in the second half. Similar kind of time, actually. And then Fulham, not only did they not equalise, but they didn't have a shot for the rest of the game. That's how well Arsenal were defending and controlling matches. Whereas Villa had, I think they created the highest expected goals figure against Arsenal in any game this season. and that was also the case before half-time. They had the highest at half-time as well. And so all afternoon, Villa were causing Arsenal problems. They didn't really ever fully have control of the game aside from maybe that 15, 20-minute period after half-time.

20:22Rob Dawson:And when you're living with defined margins like that, sometimes they go for you as they have done for Arsenal a few times this season, most obviously Newcastle away when they scored right of the death to win that game 2-1. And this game could have gone their way too. but sometimes it will go against you. And obviously that Buendia moment was fantastic for Villa and fantastic for Manchester City up the M6.

20:46James Olley:We'll move on to the title race, what it means for the title race and Man City. But just in terms of Arsenal's result, will Arteta be looking at that and be worried about a wider pattern that is emerging? Or will he look at it and go, well, that was just, it was a blip. We played a great team away from home. These things happen in the Premier League. Do you think there'll be wider worry with Arteta that this is a sign of things to come?

21:10Rob Dawson:I mean, he put a brave face on it afterwards. He was quite defiant. I mean, I sort of said to him, you know, a lot is going to be made off the back of this with the title race tightening up. And, you know, how confident are you that the players can deal with those ups and downs? And he said, well, you know, we've dealt with it for five months without a problem. So we just have to go and do that again. And you sort of think, well, yeah, fair enough. They have and they've had their injuries, but they've not really had anybody over their shoulder. You know, this is the first sort of week, really, where City have kind of put them under any kind of pressure.

21:46Rob Dawson:And it showed, I thought, a little bit in the Brentford game. And it certainly showed again at Villa Park. Now, he'll probably say, well, look, this is a consequence of the schedule. And clearly they've got another big away game ticked off, albeit not in a positive way. but they've now been to Old Trafford, they've been to St James' Park, they've been to Anfield, they've now been to Villa Park. They're ticking off a lot of these big away games. So the second half of the season, the run in for them should be a little bit kinder and offer a schedule that enables them to go on a kind of consistent run to go and win the league.

22:21Rob Dawson:And they've been to all those places, they've had all these injuries and all these difficult things to deal with, and they're still two points clear at the top of the table. That's kind of a spin he's putting on it. the sort of flip side of that though is that the one thing we don't know about this arsenal team is do they have the mentality to see it out when the pressure reaches its maximum now we're not going to know that until march april may and we were thinking that maybe you know two three weeks ago they might be so far clear by then that it won't matter what i think we're seeing in the moment is that actually the title race is going to be tighter and arsenal aren't necessarily going to be 8, 10, 12 points clear in early April.

23:04Rob Dawson:And I think it feels, and I know we're going to talk about City in a minute, but it feels as though Guardiola is already kind of playing on that a little bit because that is the one thing that Arsenal can't answer. They haven't been there and done it. And it's not to say they've bottled it in previous years, but they haven't seen it out. We know that they had a big lead a couple of years ago. In fact, I did think that this game at Villa reminded me of, there was a 12.30 kickoff in February 23 when Arsenal scored twice in stoppage time to win 4-2. And that was the 12-30 game. Then at three o 'clock, City went to Forest, had batted Forest, but somehow didn't put them away.

23:40Rob Dawson:And Chris Wood equalised and they drew 1-1. And it was another one of those sort of days where you felt the plates kind of shifting and it felt as though that time it was going to be Arsenal's year. Obviously, it didn't work out that way, but this kind of had a similar feel, but the opposite way for Arsenal. And they've got to prove that they can handle that. And, you know, that's probably the only remaining question about this Arsenal team now.

24:01James Olley:Well, let's move on to City then, because it felt like one of those days, didn't it, with Arsenal playing early, you know, the last minute goal goes in, they drop points, and all of a sudden City are playing immediately after. It's been quite interesting with City in the last couple of weeks, because everything has been quite negative. You know, they lose at home to Bayer Leverkusen because Guardiola's made a load of changes. The press conference after that is negative. they beat Leeds at the Etihad but only just and again there's this kind of negative feel around the post-match stuff about City's defensive issues again against Fulham you know the 5-1 up but end up winning 5-4 again afterwards Guardiola tries to put a brave face on it but he's obviously annoyed about what's happening in the second half and again the talk is all about defensive issues and And even on Friday, I was at the Etihad for Pep's pre-match stuff on Friday.

24:51James Olley:And the general theme of the press conference was quite negative, that it was about Rodri and how much they're missing Rodri. The defensive issues, why can't you keep clean sheets? You know, you're conceding goals to teams that you probably shouldn't be conceding goals to. There was an awful lot about the Fulham game, what happened in the second half. How did it go so wrong in the second half? And turning up at the Etienne on Saturday, it did feel to be quite negative. I walked in from the car park from where you get your accreditation and I could overhear City fans debating the same issues about defensive issues and are they good enough defensively to beat Sunderland?

25:27James Olley:Could they even beat Sunderland? Are they good enough to beat a Sunderland side who have started the season really well? And then all of a sudden, we're sat in the press seats waiting for kickoff and there's this massive roar from the concourses because Buendia scored. And even speaking to Josko Vardjol after the game, he said that the City players found out just before they went out to warm up. And he said that it felt a little bit different. You could feel the buzz in the stadium, perhaps a buzz that wouldn't have been there if Arsenal had just gone there and won 3-0 and kind of carried on. And it certainly did feel like that atmosphere lifted the players a little bit.

26:04James Olley:City started quite well. They struggled a little bit the first bit of the second half before they got the third goal to win 3-0. But overall, the entire day felt like one of those days where the momentum just shifts a little bit. And all of a sudden, all this kind of negativity that had been around City for seven, ten days lifted. And all of a sudden, you're two points behind Arsenal. And the questions, the one that you've just sort of said there hypothetically, can Arsenal handle the pressure? All the pressure suddenly is back on Arsenal. and Pep Guardiola comes into his post-match press conference afterwards and he's sat there smiling and laughing, talking about, you know, Cherki's unbelievable assist and Foden scoring again and the fact that they're only two points behind Arsenal and everything seems to be different.

26:47It did feel just to be like one of those days

26:50James Olley:where the momentum shifts again.

26:51Rob Dawson:I mean, one of the things about Arsenal, I think, that they have to deal with is it was really interesting, I thought, that Marino started up front ahead of Jokeres. and I went on their pre-season tour to Singapore and Hong Kong and a lot of the chat was just around the team at that time sort of behind the scenes was we need to change the way that we're playing to get the best out of Jokeres we're going to go more direct we need to be more clinical and you're going to see a sort of style shift in Arsenal that maybe you know you wouldn't have expected prior to all these signings coming in but I think what we've seen so far this season hasn't really been that.

27:31Rob Dawson:They've been prioritising their defence and their defensive resilience and clean sheets and nicking goals where they can. And when they get Jokeres back fit, he still went with Mourinho, who's been a revelation in that role in recent weeks and has really kind of brought the best out of some of the other attacking players in the team. And it seems as though they're a little bit caught between the team that the signings were supposed to make them and the team that they were last season. Because the team they were last season was so close to winning the league, but they fell short because they weren't clinical in the final third.