Mohamed Salah sends an apology to teammates after clash with Arne Slot

Liverpool have just gone through a dramatic week following Salah’s interview after the 3-3 draw against Leeds earlier this month. After being benched for three consecutive games, Salah said he felt he had been “thrown under the bus”, which led to him being left out of the squad for the Champions League match against Inter Milan.

After that, Salah and Arne Slot held talks and resolved the issue. The Egyptian returned to the Liverpool squad against Brighton, where he provided an assist for Hugo Ekitike’s winning goal. That match was also his last appearance before leaving to represent Egypt at AFCON 2025.

Now, ahead of the match against Tottenham, Salah’s teammate Curtis Jones revealed that Salah spoke to the squad after the interview. The midfielder said: “Mo is his own man and he can say his own stuff. He apologised to us and was like, ‘If I’ve affected anybody or made you feel any sort of way, I apologise’. That’s the man that he is.

“I can only speak from knowing Mo and how he is with us and how he acted on that. He was positive as well. He was the exact same Mo, he had a big smile on his face and everybody was exactly the same with him.

“I guess it’s just part of wanting to be a winner and I don’t think he will be the last. I get that there are certain ways you can go about things, but if a lad’s fine to just be on the bench and he doesn’t want to play and help the team, then I think that’s more of an issue.

“When there’s been any sort of anger from us, including myself, it’s always been from a good place. At the moment, it might not have come out in the right way, but it’s never affected the team, the staff, the manager, anybody like that.”

Arne Slot also defended the player and insisted the situation has been put behind them. “I said last week that actions speak louder than words and we moved on,” Slot said. “He was in the squad and he was the first substitution I made.

“Now he’s at AFCON playing big games for himself but also for his country. It’s fair to them but also to us, because we are going to play some very important games, that all the focus is on him over there and there should not be any distraction from me saying anything about his time here at Liverpool. We moved on after the Leeds interview and he played against Brighton.”

Liverpool will face Tottenham at 0:30 tomorrow in Gameweek 17 of the Premier League. Slot’s side are currently sitting in 7th place with 26 points, just two points behind fourth-placed Chelsea. As for Egypt, they will meet Zimbabwe on 23 December in their opening match of the tournament.