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Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher labeled Mohamed Salah a "disgrace" for speaking out against the club and head coach Arne Slot, but the Egyptian was never his favorite player.
Carragher has a lot of respect for Salah and believes he will go down as one of the greatest players in the club's history. Carragher also hopes that there's a route back into the team for Salah, after he was dropped from the Champions League squad due to his destructive comments.
Although Salah remains at Liverpool for now, he's the final member of the iconic front-three partnership involving Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané. For Carragher, Mane was always the priority, and he claimed that the Senegal forward was "low maintenance" during his time at Liverpool.
Firmino was at Liverpool when former manager Jurgen Klopp was hired, but the German soon assembled an iconic front three. Mane was signed from Southampton in 2016, and Salah was acquired from AS Roma the following year.
Together, they won all major trophies, starting with the Champions League in 2018-19 before ending Liverpool's 30-year Premier League drought in 2019-20. In the summer of 2022, Mane left Liverpool for Bayern Munich in a deal worth $37 million.
It was the end of an era at Liverpool, and Carragher was particularly upset to see Mane depart. In a post on X after the transfer was complete, Carragher wrote: "My favorite @LFC player of this era.
"Sadio Mane finally departs. Low maintenance, high performance & never injured! Trophies & goals galore, a true Liverpool Legend. Thank you, Sadio."
After Liverpool won the Premier League, Carragher interviewed Mane at Anfield and declared his love for the Senegal forward. While success helped Carragher's admiration for Mane grow, he had been keen on Him from the start.
In an interview with Liverpool, Carragher said: "Even after the first couple of games, I said Mane, probably along with Raheem Sterling, was possibly the best left winger in the world. I absolutely love him, he's my favorite player at the club.
"He's brilliant, he's always got a smile on his face, always there, always gets knocked about, gets goals, setting others up. He's the one who came in at the very start under Klopp, his first real big signing, and I think ever since then he's just been getting better and better. He's just a machine."
Mane has since left Bayern and moved to Saudi Arabia, where he plays for Al-Nassr alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. Meanwhile, Salah remains a Liverpool player but is not currently part of the squad due to his misconduct.
Salah accused Liverpool of "throwing him under the bus" after he was benched for the third consecutive game, alleging that he was being blamed for the team's poor performances. Salah also said that he no longer shares a relationship with Slot, but the head coach is open to reconciliation.
"I'm a firm believer that there's always a possibility to return for a player," Slot said. "So, I can leave it with that, I think."
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