Mohamed Salah's Future at Liverpool: Final Anfield Appearance?

Arne Slot is refusing to say whether Mohamed Salah will be given a final Anfield bow on Sunday, even as the forward’s Liverpool career ticks towards its end.

Salah is expected to leave this summer after nine glittering years on Merseyside, but his parting act – if there is one – remains shrouded in doubt. Liverpool face Brentford needing just a point to rubber‑stamp a return to the Champions League. Sentiment, Slot made clear, will not pick the team.

“I never say anything about team selection,” the Liverpool manager said when pressed on whether Salah would feature.

The question carried extra weight after a turbulent week. Salah used social media last weekend to call for Liverpool to change their style of play, a post widely read as a swipe at the football being played under Slot. It was a rare public crack in the relationship between one of the club’s greatest modern players and the man charged with reshaping the next era.

It is not the first flashpoint. Earlier this season, Slot left the 33‑year‑old out of the squad for a Champions League trip to Inter Milan after Salah said in an interview that their relationship had broken down. The omission underlined how far things had soured behind the scenes.

Asked directly how he felt about Salah’s latest comments, Slot batted the issue away and dragged the focus back to Sunday.

“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.

“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.

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

Slot did not hide his own dissatisfaction with Liverpool’s football this season, admitting the team must change – with or without Salah.

“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,” he said. “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.

“But 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 about Salah “somewhere else” felt telling. Slot did not expand, yet the sense of an era closing is hard to ignore.

Authority questioned, identity debated

Salah’s post spoke about Liverpool needing to recover their identity, a pointed phrase given the club’s struggles to hit previous heights. That raised another issue: had the forward’s public critique undermined Slot’s authority?

The Dutchman bristled at that idea.

“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.

“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 there is a rift, Slot insists it is built on shared ambition rather than outright conflict: both men, he stressed, want Liverpool back in the business of winning major trophies.

Social media storm, training‑ground calm

Salah’s post drew visible support from several team‑mates who liked and commented on it, a modern dressing‑room signal that can quickly be read as a political act. Slot, though, claimed that world is not his.

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

“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.”

Out on the grass, Slot says, nothing has changed. Online, the noise grows louder.

On Sunday, Anfield will look for one more point, one more European ticket, and perhaps one last glimpse of Mohamed Salah in red. Whether Slot grants that wish – or chooses the cold logic of his evolving Liverpool – will say plenty about where this club is heading next.