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Jamie Carragher says Mohamed Salah misjudged the core Liverpool fanbase when he spoke out publicly against his manager, Arne Slot, at Elland Road — leaving the Reds boss in a stronger position than before.
Having beaten Inter Milan in the Champions League when Salah was left at home, Carragher believes Salah's intentions might have backfired. Slot and his number 11 will hold talks today (Friday) to determine whether he will be involved in the matchday squad for the visit of Brighton on Saturday.
"Amid his most difficult Anfield spell, Slot has somehow found himself in a position from which he can emerge stronger and more secure than ever," Carragher writes in his Daily Telegraph column.
"If Salah’s intention with his grumble in the huddle at Elland Road was to weaken Slot, he must now concede that his misguided actions have had the opposite effect.
"The chief reason for Salah’s miscalculation is his failure to fully understand the psychology of the club’s hardcore fanbase. In a choice between a title-winning Anfield manager and a multi-title-winning footballer, the coach wins every time.
"The relationship between a successful Liverpool boss and the Kop is, through my eyes at least, unique. The fans have a banner that displays the faces of all the most revered managers in the club’s history. Slot’s face was added this year.
"What other fanbase would back a manager who has only been at the club 18 months over a superstar who has delivered every honour in the game for eight years?
"It is a valid argument that Liverpool are the current Premier League champions because of Salah more than Slot. The Egyptian’s goals propelled the team to glory last May. But the Kop will never see it in such individual terms."
The prospect of Salah having played his last game for Liverpool is not one that anyone expected to be discussing even at the final whistle of the 3-3 draw with Leeds United six days ago.
But given the nature of the comments and the fact that Salah is set to head off for AFCON, it cannot be completely ruled out. If this is how it ends, it would be a sad way to go for a bona fide Liverpool legend.
"There is a newer generation of supporters who follow players more than a club," Carragher writes. "If Salah had left two years ago or last summer, they would have taken their allegiance with him.
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"I would go so far as to say that there are some who would have happily seen Liverpool lose to increase the prospects of Salah staying and Slot leaving.
"This issue was never going to be just about Slot versus Salah, or even Salah versus Liverpool’s executives. To those who understand Liverpool, it is about their perception of what the club stands for and how those representing it should behave."
Liverpool.com says: Carragher has summed things up perfectly. Slot is in a more powerful position now than he was before Salah's outburst, and that can't have been the intention.
At Liverpool, no one can be allowed to be bigger than the club. With some of the comments that Salah made, he was intimating that he felt he should be given privileges that others are not afforded as a result of what he has achieved in the past.
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