The true meaning behind Mohamed Salah’s rant and how Liverpool can fix him

If we now know most of what is on Mohamed Salah ’s mind, the great question is what Arne Slot and the Liverpool hierarchy are thinking behind the scenes.

The Egyptian did not travel to Milan for the important Champions League match with Inter Milan after his extraordinary tirade , and these are strong optics, but it is not being presented as some final decisive call.

Slot has already said that his relationship is not broken , and that after this game, they will look at the situation again.

Those who know the Dutch coach well say that he is pragmatic and that no door is ever fully closed for him in situations like this, as he put it on the eve of the Inter game.

"I am a firm believer there's always a possibility to return,” he said in Milan.

That's a view that would be consistent with the club’s current stance: they want to keep the Egyptian.

That might just be a negotiating position, as they attempt to navigate what is a highly complicated crisis.

By the same token, Slot has never been in this kind of situation before, so there’s no suggestion of what his own response is going to be. In a mere nine years in coaching, he’s only known an upward trajectory, and never any real difficulties with elite stars who also happen to be historic legends at mega-clubs.

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Figures close to the situation have suggested that part of the problem might be how Slot spoke to Salah amid all of this.

Slot isn’t really a coach to politick behind players’ backs, or play psychological games with them. He tends to give them his reasons in a straightforward way, and matter-of-factly tells them why a certain decision has been made.

It’s possible, however, that this wasn’t sufficient for Salah. Most stars of his level tend to have to function with a certain tunnel vision, but the Egyptian’s personality is more particular than most. Multiple sources say he requires a more nuanced man-management, that Slot perhaps isn’t prone to give.

This is maybe what Salah was getting at in talking about how much he’s done for the club, and the constant suggestions he feels he deserves more.

Or, it’s just possible that a player of his status was never going to react well to being dropped at all.

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This, as has been argued on these pages before and in the Inside Football newsletter this week, is why Sir Alex Ferguson tended to make hard decisions on stars first: specifically to prevent situations like this.

Instead, Liverpool now face multiple complicated problems, some of them admittedly needless, but all of them stemming from some relatively simple equations.

The club gave a 33-year-old the biggest contract they’ve ever written, primarily based on incredible output over eight years in a specific tactical framework.

That framework is now gone, along with most of the players required for it, and Salah’s output has drastically dropped.

That form began to coincide with the worst spell of results the modern Liverpool have ever experienced, which has necessarily required Slot to start thinking about things differently.

It was already fair enough to try and build a new tactical framework along different lines, and eminently reasonable that they aren't shaped around a player entering the final years of his career.

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In the spell in which it hasn’t worked, it is similarly fair enough for one of Slot’s attempted solutions to be to drop Salah. The team needs the jolt.

The biggest shock has been in the extent of Salah’s reaction. Ultimately, it feels entirely disproportionate to what has actually happened: a mere three games on the bench.

Now, make that four, but only after his latest outburst.

And again, while the great question has been over Salah’s exact motivation for this, more relevant is what response it causes.

That pressure will be felt all the more keenly since the Liverpool hierarchy thought they’d already made the big decision on their star.

They’d gone through months of negotiations, weighing up everything.

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And here they are again, having to consider everything anew, not least his relationship with Slot.

It’s been suggested that might actually be the least of the problems.

There is, nevertheless, considerable irritation at higher levels of the club because of the timing of these comments as well as the content.

It comes when everyone feels vulnerable, not least the manager.

Liverpool are intent on standing by Slot, and they absolutely won’t let any individual player’s words influence their approach.

There may also be an inclination to try and ride this out, a little like results.

Salah is about to go to the African Cup of Nations, after all. Results might steady.

Maybe there is space for a rapprochement, as those who know Slot state he is always open to.

But it’s a considerable risk. A lot can change. This can get worse.

There’s going to be a lot to think about.