Mohamed Salah's Future at Liverpool: A Power Struggle Unfolds
Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool future, once painted as a closed chapter, has been dragged back into the spotlight – and it now hangs on two fault lines at the heart of the club.
The first is Arne Slot. The second is the power structure that backed him.
A season gone sour
Liverpool’s 2025/26 campaign has unravelled in a way few at Anfield saw coming. The champions who lifted a 20th league title have turned into a side making a feeble defence of their crown, losing games, losing shape, and, most worryingly, losing belief.
Salah has not escaped the fallout. The standards that once defined him have dipped sharply, mirroring a squad whose collective level has collapsed since last season. The Egyptian, once the relentless spearhead of Liverpool’s attack, has looked a shadow of his former self. Slot, meanwhile, has been hammered for tactical caution, muddled game plans and a style that has drained the team of its old ferocity.
The tension between the club’s biggest star and its head coach has not stayed behind closed doors. There have been clashes over Salah’s reduced role, visible frustration at his slide down the pecking order, and, eventually, a decision that seemed definitive: he would leave on a free transfer this summer, a year before his contract expires.
Over the weekend, Salah went a step further. He publicly criticised Slot’s playing style and called for the return of the “heavy metal attacking football” that once turned Anfield into a storm. It was a pointed message, aimed not just at tactics but at the identity of the club.
All sides had already agreed a summer exit was the cleanest solution. Or so it seemed.
Salah’s U-turn – with conditions
According to The Athletic, the story has taken a twist. Salah, through associates in Egypt, has indicated he has not completely abandoned the idea of staying at Liverpool, despite recent announcements about his departure.
But there is a catch. A big one.
For Salah to even consider a U-turn, there would need to be what the report describes as a “regime change”. That starts with Slot. It also extends to the directors who have stood firmly behind him and whose own contracts, like the head coach’s, are entering their final year.
In other words, Salah’s openness to remain is tied directly to a reset at the top: a new man in the dugout and a reshaped hierarchy above him. No shift, no stay.
It is a stark position from a player who has defined Liverpool’s modern era. It underlines just how deep the fractures now run inside the club.
FSG’s stance and the Slot question
While Salah’s camp weighs up a conditional stay, Liverpool’s owners are wrestling with their own dilemma.
Reports from TEAMtalk suggested on Monday morning that FSG were themselves rethinking Slot’s future, with Salah’s outburst after Friday’s defeat to Aston Villa acting as a trigger. Four potential replacements were said to be under consideration, hinting at a board ready to move.
Yet the message from those closest to the decision-makers has been very different.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Fabrizio Romano insisted that Liverpool’s hierarchy remain behind their coach. “They want to support Arne Slot, believe in Arne Slot,” he said, even while acknowledging the stark reality of the campaign: 20 defeats, poor football, a season that has felt relentlessly negative.
The owners know how bad it has been. They know the football has not matched the club’s ambitions or its recent history. But, as Romano outlined, the people in charge are still the ones calling the shots, and their line up to this past weekend has been clear: no approach to any other coach, no calls to Xabi Alonso, no sounding out of alternatives.
Liverpool, publicly at least, still believe in Slot.
A fault line that can’t hold
That leaves the club standing on a dangerous ridge. On one side, a manager the board continues to back, despite results and unrest. On the other, the club’s greatest modern goalscorer, who would only consider staying if that manager – and the structure around him – is swept away.
Something will have to give.
Does FSG double down on Slot and accept the end of the Salah era on strained terms? Or does the weight of a broken season, a disillusioned dressing room and a restless fanbase push them towards a reset that could yet tempt their talisman to stay?
Liverpool wanted stability after a turbulent defence of their title. What they have instead is a power struggle that will shape what this team looks like long after the final whistle of this season.
