Mohamed Salah’s farewell tour starts now – but departing legend must rediscover old magic to ensure long Liverpool goodbye doesn’t fall flat

Mohamed Salah’s departure from Liverpool FC appeared to be something the club was willing to accept regardless of the financial loss. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have agreed to let him leave a year before his contract expired—especially one he had only renewed the previous April.

While Liverpool will save around £20 million in wages next season, they could have earned significantly more—potentially three times that amount—by selling him to a Saudi club. This suggests Salah’s belief was justified: someone at the club wanted him gone.

Head coach Arne Slot may deny any involvement in Salah’s early exit, but it’s clear that their strained relationship played a major role in the winger’s decision to leave. Despite being the third-highest scorer in Liverpool’s history, Salah likely understood he was in a battle he couldn’t win, as the club firmly backed the manager who had just delivered a Premier League title in his debut season.

Ironically, Slot’s title win in the 2024–25 campaign would have been impossible without Salah. Moreover, his chances of rescuing the current season depend heavily on rediscovering the form of a player who now feels unfairly blamed for the team’s struggles.

Klopp’s Legacy Questioned

When successful teams begin to decline, attention quickly shifts to the manager, and narratives can change.

In Slot’s case, there’s a real danger that current difficulties could tarnish his past achievements. Previously praised for transforming a squad that finished third under Jürgen Klopp into champions, Slot is now facing claims that he simply benefited from Klopp’s groundwork.

Critics argue that despite being given £450 million to strengthen the squad, Slot has instead weakened the strong foundation built by his predecessor.

However, this argument overlooks key factors and oversimplifies the situation.

For starters, succeeding Klopp as Liverpool manager was considered an impossible job. The ‘normal one’ had achieved god-like status on Merseyside, having turned doubters into believers. Consequently, plenty of people predicted Slot would suffer the same fate as David Moyes at Manchester United, or Rafael Benitez at Inter, quality coaches utterly crushed by the comparisons to the messiah-like figures that had come before them.

It unquestionably helped that Klopp had the supporters singing Slot’s name before he’d even arrived at Anfield, but the Dutchman undoubtedly deserved immense credit for arguably the greatest debut season by a coach in Premier League history. As former Manchester United captain Roy Keane said on Sky Sports after Liverpool had clinched the title with a 5-1 rout of Tottenham last April, “We have to praise the manager because he’s done an amazing job.

“It was a decent group when he took over, but if someone had said at the start of the season that Liverpool would be where they are now, you wouldn’t have believed them, you’d have thought they needed locking up!”