LONDON – Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah said he had been “thrown under the bus” as he tore into the club over his treatment after watching from the bench as his side twice threw away the lead in a 3-3 Premier League draw with Leeds United.
The 33-year-old Egyptian lashed out at the club and coach Arne Slot, telling journalists he felt he had been scapegoated for their poor start to the season and suggesting that he may not have long left at Anfield.
Salah has become an iconic figure in an eight-year spell at Anfield in which he has won two Premier League titles and scored 250 goals in all competitions for the club.
“I’m very, very disappointed to be fair. I have done so much for this club, everybody can see that during the years and especially last season,” Salah told reporters in the post-match mixed zone.
“I don’t know, it seems like the club is throwing me under the bus. That’s how I felt it, how I feel it.
“I think it’s very clear that someone wants me to get all the blame. The club promised me in the summer, a lot of promises and nothing so far,” Salah added according to Reuters.
Salah scored 34 goals and had 18 assists in 52 games across all competitions last season, but with his side floundering, he has managed five goals and three assists in 19 games in the current campaign.
The forward indicated that his relationship with Slot had broken down completely.
“I had a good relationship with the manager, and all of a sudden we don’t have any relationship. I don’t know why, it seems, it seems to me, how I see it, someone doesn’t want me in the club,” he said.
Since joining Liverpool from AS Roma in 2017, Salah has become the club’s third-highest scorer behind Ian Rush and Roger Hunt, but it appears that he feels his time on Merseyside may be coming to an end.
“I don’t think I’m the problem. I have done so much for this club with the respect I want to get. And I don’t have to go every day fighting for my position because I’ve earned it,” Salah said.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, so I’m just going to be in Anfield, say goodbye to the fans (before) going to Africa Cup (of Nations), because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I’m there … it’s not acceptable for me, to be fair. I don’t know why that happened. Always to me, I don’t get it.”
