LONDON - Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insisted that his spat with Mohamed Salah has been “completely resolved,” saying his long history with the star forward ensured there was no lasting damage to their relationship.
Klopp and Salah were involved in a touchline confrontation during the 2-2 draw at West Ham Saturday. When Salah was asked after the game to comment on the incident, the Egypt international was heard saying: “There’s going to be a fire if I speak.”
“There’s no problem,” said Klopp, who was speaking ahead of Liverpool’s home match with Tottenham in the English Premier League on Sunday.
Nearly a week later, Klopp said the matter was a “non-story.”
“If we wouldn’t know each other for that long, I don’t know how we would deal with it but we know each other for that long and respect each other too much that it’s really no problem,” Klopp said according to AP.
The incident happened as Salah was preparing to come on as a substitute, having been selected on the bench for the second time in three games.
“In general, the best situation would be everybody is in the best possible place, we win games, and we score lots of goals. Yes, then the situation (with Salah) would probably not have been exactly like that,” Klopp said. “Then Mo wouldn’t have been on the bench in the first place.”
Klopp, who is leaving Liverpool at the end of the season after nearly nine years in charge, was asked if the 31-year-old Salah should be part of the new manager’s plans. Salah, a Liverpool player since 2017, has been linked with a move to the Saudi league.
“I’ve said before, what a player he is. That he’s incredible,” Klopp said. “But I don’t think I should speak about that, to be honest. Other people will decide that, especially Mo.
“I don’t have any signs it will not be like that. But I’m really the wrong person already for a few weeks to talk about these kind of things.”
He added that the “pressure is off” after his Liverpool team dropped out of the Premier League title race, urging his men to rediscover their best form in the final few games of his Anfield reign.
Liverpool have won just one of their past five league games and it would now take a miracle for them to catch Arsenal and Manchester City.
The club was at one stage on track to win a quadruple but will end the season with just the League Cup, though they are already guaranteed Champions League football for next season.
“It is an achievement,” Klopp said according to AFP. “Does it feel to everybody like that? Probably not, but to me it does and that’s how the perspective can change during a season.
“Because for a while we obviously looked like we could go all the way or at least stay in the race for longer, which was definitely possible.
“For different reasons that didn’t work out but it’s still probably third place in the league behind two teams who have done really well and they go all the way.”
The German, 56, said he wanted his team to play with freedom in his last three matches, starting with Sunday’s home game against fifth-placed Tottenham.
“The pressure is off now. That’s done. It would be really cool if we could play really, really good football again,” he said.
“That would be absolutely nice because obviously we have been very tense in the last weeks; we had a super-intensive period as well.”
Aston Villa’s 4-2 defeat in the first leg of their Europa Conference League semi-final against Olympiakos on Thursday means it is unlikely that any English team will be in a European final this season.
Klopp was adamant the Premier League was still the top league in the world but said some of the TV scheduling was a “crime”.
“If you make of the fact that English teams are not in the finals, if you make of that that we all under-performed,” he said.
“There might be moments, us against Atalanta, stuff like that, but in general I’ve watched a lot of football all over the world — the Premier League is the best league in the world, so it’s not overrated.”
He added: “That they dare to give Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday 12.30 is a crime. I was actually waiting for Amnesty International to go to them.
“In the whole world we have the quickest turnaround between games but they are still happy and collect (TV) subscribers.”
