Is Mohamed Salah to blame for Liverpool’s problems? 

Star forward Mohamed Salah gave an explosive interview right after Liverpool’s away draw against Leeds United on Saturday.

The Reds were leading 2–0 in the game at one point, with Arne Slot having left Salah on the bench for a third successive outing. However, they allowed Leeds to come back with some shoddy defending and ended up drawing in stoppage time, conceding a late equaliser from a corner.

Salah spoke to the media in the mixed zone afterwards, stating how disappointed he was with the treatment he was receiving and felt that he had been let down by the coach and the club after all that he had achieved at Anfield over the last eight years.

The ongoing feeling around Liverpool is one of desperation. Massively under pressure to find solutions, Arne Slot felt that tough decisions needed to be taken in order to stem the flow of poor results.

One of those tough decisions was to leave his talismanic forward, Mohamed Salah, on the bench. There is no doubt that Salah has struggled for form this season, so the decision seemed sensible at the time.

However, when Salah, the same player who completed an all-timer campaign featuring 29 goals and 18 assists in the league just a few months back, wasn’t involved in the next two games, Liverpool drew both affairs and conceded four goals to newly promoted sides.

This resulted in an outburst in the media from Salah, on the back of which many ex-players and journalists have criticised him for airing his dirty laundry in public and suggested that he should have run his tirade behind closed doors.

The question now arises: was Salah right in expressing his feelings to the media, and is he being scapegoated?

The answer is slightly complicated.

While I do believe that Salah shouldn’t have come out and spoken to the media in the manner that he did, because it was disrespectful to the club, I also believe that he is receiving undue criticism, with the bigger picture being ignored.

Let’s look at a few key factors currently causing upheaval at Liverpool.

A combination of transition and tragedy

Liverpool entered this season on the back of a title-winning one, and for the first time in years, the club owners showed ambition and invested in high-quality, big-money signings in Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, and Alexander Isak, among others.

However, in the summer, the club were also struck by a massive, unexpected tragedy with the untimely demise of one of their players, Diogo Jota, who died in a car accident in July.

The buoyant mood around the club after the Premier League title quickly turned heavy and sombre, with the players, support staff, fans, and everyone else associated with the club left to mourn the loss of one of their own. There was also a mass exodus of many regular starters, including Darwin Núñez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Díaz, Harvey Elliott, Jarell Quansah, and Caoimhín Kelleher.

With so many changes happening at the same time, many expected 2025/26 to be a transitional season for Liverpool. And it felt like it, given the manner in which they won the first few games of the season, needing individual brilliance on four separate occasions to get out of trouble. As thrilling as those wins were, it was equally true that the team did not look comfortable. The players looked emotional, ostensibly grieving the loss of a teammate and a friend.

Then came one loss after another, until they beat Aston Villa at home, winning a game after four straight losses in the league — a capitulation no one had expected.

At the moment, the defending champions are tenth in the Premier League table, having registered seven wins, six defeats, and two draws. They haven’t fared much better in the Champions League either, currently sitting in 13th place in the league phase table with three wins and two defeats.

Transition and tragedy have thus combined to land the team in this situation.

Player form and tactics  

The entire team are struggling from front to back. Be it the centre-back pairing of Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk, the midfield duo of Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch, or forwards Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah, no one barring Dominik Szoboszlai has performed as per expectations. Additionally, none of the new signings barring Hugo Ekitike have hit the ground running.

It’s not just down to the players, because the head coach also seems to be struggling to find solutions. Dropping Salah to the bench for three straight games didn’t turn around the fortunes for Arne Slot, as Liverpool only won one game, that too against relegation-threatened West Ham, while sharing the points with newly promoted sides Sunderland and Leeds United.

Salah’s exclusion from the side was justified with the need to bolster defensive solidity on the pitch, but since Liverpool ended up conceding four goals in three games, the decision proved to be ineffective.

For further context, Liverpool’s most productive player this season in front of goal so far has been Gakpo with five goals and four assists in 21 appearances, while Salah has five goals and three assists in 19 appearances, though he has created the fourth-most chances (27) in the league.

Salah’s underwhelming performances can be attributed to several factors. Playing alongside new forwards is one, the ever-changing personnel at right-back is another, as are the missing profiles of players that enabled him to shine last season. Another thing to note this season is that Liverpool have not been struggling in offence that much. They’re first in the league for most chances created (151) and have scored only four goals fewer than the table-toppers, Arsenal.

It’s their defensive stats that are particularly damning. Liverpool have conceded 24 goals in 15 league games, managing only three clean sheets. Their performances, and the manner in which they have been conceding goals, point towards issues with tactics and team selection, not just Salah performing poorly.

Konaté and Van Dijk have been error-prone and inconsistent. Gravenberch has been underwhelming in his deep-lying role in midfield, while Mac Allister has looked a shadow of himself and lost and forlorn. Most of the goals Liverpool have conceded have come from long passes and set pieces. While defending, the midfield has looked virtually non-existent, with players seeming clueless and lethargic.

Given how little the situation has changed since the start of the season, some blame has to be attributed to the coaching staff as well.

Moreover, Slot’s stance regarding some players has frankly been baffling. Even with regular starters showing poor form, he has failed to show faith in other experienced squad players like Federico Chiesa, Wataru Endo, and Joe Gomez, who have hardly had many minutes despite showing glimpses of promise in the few they have received.

Chiesa, in particular, has been involved in many crucial moments for the team this season, yet he fails to get starts. Unlike his predecessor, who believed in giving opportunities to academy talent, Slot has so far failed to utilise young talent like Rio Ngumoha, Trey Nyoni, and Kaide Gordon, especially when the senior pros have been below par.

Gaps in recruitment 

Liverpool spent £446 million this summer, a record-highest spending spree by a Premier League club in a single transfer window, going particularly big for Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak, and Hugo Ekitike. However, they also recouped about £260 million in player sales. After the window slammed shut, the collapsed move for Crystal Palace defender Marc Guéhi on deadline day looked like their only regret. 

However, getting an experienced centre-back wasn’t the only thing Liverpool missed out on. They also missed a trick in getting a like-for-like replacement for Luis Díaz along with a defensive midfielder. To address the latter issue, they did try to sign Martín Zubimendi from Real Sociedad last year, but the Spaniard decided to stay in the Basque Country at the eleventh hour. As a result, Ryan Gravenberch played a deeper role in midfield and excelled, even winning the PFA Young Player of the Season award for his performances.

But that was a different squad in a different season. Playing Gravenberch away from his preferred position should always have been a temporary solution. This season, Liverpool have suffered due to his inability to defend, engage in duels, and make tackles. As for Díaz, his ability to press from the front as well as his work rate were second to none. The Colombian even tracked back to help in defence, which allowed Salah on the other flank to stay up the field and create and convert chances on turnovers and transitions.

Missing out on a like-for-like Díaz replacement and a proper defensive midfielder have thus contributed to Liverpool’s poor performances so far this season, as the team look severely devoid of balance in midfield.

Conclusion 

Mo Salah’s underwhelming form is just a drop in the ocean and not the sole reason for Liverpool’s dismal form this season. As a consequence of his recent outburst, he has not even travelled for the Reds’ Champions League trip to Milan to face Inter, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll start against Brighton in the league at the weekend either, after which he is due to leave for the Africa Cup of Nations.

The situation around one of Liverpool’s best players of the last decade seems bleak. There’s a strong possibility that Salah may leave the club in January itself, which isn’t great news for the fans who have come to appreciate and rely on his world-class talent week in, week out.

Without a doubt, Salah has been instrumental in Liverpool’s resurgence over the past decade. To see a club legend depart in this manner would be extremely disheartening. Some still hope the situation can be amicably resolved, and Salah fulfils his contract until 2027.

Alternatively, if he is to leave the club next year, then may he at least depart with the respect, admiration, and love that a club legend like him truly deserves.