When Liverpool beat Bournemouth 4-2 in Premier League curtain raiser there were already warning signs of what was to come.
- Written before Arne Slot spoke to the media on Monday ahead of Inter vs Liverpool
We are all prone to reading too much into a single performance, especially on the opening weekend, and at the time the late drama and Bournemouth’s comeback from 2-0 down was dismissed in favour of the excellence of new signing Hugo Ekitike, a sure sign Liverpool would go up a level after their title win in 2024/25.
A couple of months later and people began to look back on that August win as representative of the defensive lapses and decline that was to come. A few weeks later still, pundits began to see Mohamed Salah’s under-performance in that game as one of the most important, and over-looked, symbols of Liverpool’s first game of their title defence.
But even now, in mid-December, and even after Salah’s extraordinary comments that have plunged Liverpool deeper into crisis, nobody appears to be looking back on the most significant event from Anfield on August 15: Salah breaking down in tears at full-time.
After Diogo Jota’s death in July there was widespread appreciation that Liverpool were grief-stricken; that the importance of the forthcoming season paled in comparison to the tragedy. Many people understood that should performances suffer Liverpool needed to be given time and space, leeway and forgiveness, over the months ahead.
Everything that has happened to Liverpool this season can and should be viewed through that lens.
They look fragile, vulnerable, shaky, foggy, unfocused; words that echo the language we use to describe grief, words that might accurately describe how an invincible-seeming footballer might feel when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under them by the death of a co-worker and friend.
Yet very few people are still bringing this up, are showing the Liverpool players sympathy for what happened at the club just a few months ago.
That was true all the way back in September, when Salah was criticised for responded angrily to an Instagram account that celebrated a perceived ‘upgrade’ on departed players Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz. Nobody seemed to notice who was conspicuously absent from that post; nobody thought about what might have been on Salah’s mind when he reacted to a fan account quickly moving on from the dressing room of 2024/25.
What happened on Saturday had a less direct relationship with Jota’s death, but nevertheless there has been a remarkable absence of thought and sympathy in the analysis of his emotional outburst.
Salah has suddenly lashed out at a perceived threat to himself, to the loss of his place in the team, the loss of his status, the loss of the comforting stability he had, the loss of what Liverpool has meant to him these last few years. The symbolism should be obvious, the anger understandable. Last Thursday was Jota’s birthday, by the way.
That is not to say Salah, as a senior member of the squad, should not have reacted differently. Clearly he should have kept the matter private and spoken to Slot directly, although the oblique reference to the manager was itself revealing.
"I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager, and all of a sudden we don't have any relationship.” That’s a striking thing to say, as striking as the fact Slot seemingly did not speak to Salah over the past week to explain his team selections. Never before has a squad so badly needed its manager for emotional and mental support… and yet here, too, we should pause before criticising. Slot is also grieving.
“It is completely different to usual [grieving],” Slot told Sky Sports on Friday. “Usually when you grieve it is someone family related… and then you come to work and that’s the place to forget your grief. Now, that is the opposite.”
Grief follows the squad everywhere, with reminder in every aspect of training at Melwood and matchday preparation. We know this because Slot told us so at the start of the season, and yet there has been collective amnesia (from those outside the club, not from the fans, whose moving 20th-minute tribute to Jota continues) or perhaps a deliberate repression of a subject deemed too difficult for awkward British journalists to confront.
On Friday, Slot spoke of how proud he was of everybody connected with the club for how they have conducted themselves, telling Sky Sports that is significantly more important to him than results.
Salah’s words the following day might have altered his views a little, but perhaps not. More likely, he will demonstrate the compassion and leniency towards Salah that the rest of the football industry has no interest in showing.
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