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Arne Slot was keen for the spotlight to be shone on his other Liverpool players following a vital win against Inter Milan — but conceded that Mohamed Salah is going to hog the headlines for a little longer.
Dominik Szoboszlai scored the winner at the San Siro as Liverpool edged past Cristian Chivu's side, keeping a clean sheet against a team that has been free-scoring in Serie A this year. Showing a determination to stick behind their manager, the Reds players put in a strong performance for Slot at a time of real pressure.
"If you mean the 3-3 with Leeds and the draw with Sunderland, then you are correct that it is a relief," Slot said live on Amazon Prime Sport at the final whistle. "But that is something different [from the Mohamed Salah situation].
"We hardly conceded a chance and we hardly conceded a chance in the last games, so to go away from [Leeds] with a 3-3 draw was really hard to take. That was already emotional and then what happened after (Salah's interview) was emotional as well.
"Fourth game in 10 days with 13 outfield players available that have Premier League or Champions League experience, that shows you the resilience."
Liverpool is now inside the top eight spots in Europe and perhaps has a template of how to move forward after it looked like more of a unit in Milan.
With a decision still to be made on whether or not Salah will come back into contention for the visit of Brighton on Saturday, it is hard to make the case that he should regain his place purely for footballing reasons, let alone his comments on Saturday.
"I think tonight it should be all about what we have done over here," Slot insisted.
"I can fully understand that on Friday when I go into the press conference, all the questions will be about Mo.
"But I think these players deserve that we speak about them."
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Clarence Seedorf attempted to press Slot into an answer on what might happen next with Salah, but the Liverpool head coach was keeping his cards close to his chest.
"You say everyone makes mistakes in life, so then the first thing should be, 'Does the player think he has made a mistake as well?'" Slot said.
"But as I said, the focus from tonight should be about, for example, Virgil. But also Ibou Konate, who has had a few difficult moments recently, but he played an outstanding game today against two very good strikers."
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