Arne Slot’s last words on Mohamed Salah before Liverpool star announced exit

Arne Slot’s final comments on Mohamed Salah have resurfaced after the Liverpool star announced that he will be leaving the club at the end of the 2025/26 season

Arne Slot’s comments praising Mohamed Salah’s mentality could be his last after the Egyptian winger announced his Anfield departure.

Salah, who will have one year remaining on his contract at the end of the 2025–26 season, revealed the news in a video posted to his social media accounts shortly after 6:30pm on Tuesday.

Salah joined Liverpool FC from AS Roma in 2017 and has since cemented his place in the club’s history, becoming the Reds’ third-highest goalscorer of all time behind Ian Rush and Roger Hunt. During his time at Anfield, he has won two Premier League titles and a Champions League, among several other major honours. Ryan Gravenberch broke Liverpool’s locker room silence on Salah’s exit.

Slot praised the mentality of Salah after the forward bounced back from a missed penalty with a stellar second-half performance in Liverpool’s 4-0 Champions League win over Galatasaray.

The Egypt international, who has experienced well-publicized tensions with the Reds’ boss, saw his initial spot-kick saved by Ugurcan Cakir just before halftime, following a goal from Dominik Szoboszlai.

Salah then responded in trademark fashion, cutting in from the right and curling a left-footed strike into the net, becoming the first African player to score 50 goals in the Champions League.

“It says a lot about him that after you miss a penalty just before half-time as that can sometimes be hard for an individual or for a team,” said Slot. We have had a lot of setbacks this season, a lot of first halves or second halves where we have created chance after chance after chance without doing justice to how we have performed – so not scoring.

“And then Mo and the team came out in the second half the way they did; he assisted Hugo, a great assist, and then scored a trademark goal that he has scored so many times in this stadium and for this club, cutting inside, finding the corner.

“So that tells you a lot about his mental strength but definitely also of the team, because adversity is something we can definitely talk about in this season.”

In a bombshell interview back in December, Salah said his relationship with Slot had broken down and claimed someone was trying to force him out of the club Salah missed the Inter Milan game in the aftermath of those remarks, but after clear-the-air talks, returned to face Brighton.

Once Salah returned from AFCON, Slot was asked to describe their relationship and replied: “As normal, as it has always been. There was only one exception and that was the game against Inter where I didn’t take him. But for all of the [other] games, he was there, and in the last game he was at Liverpool, before he went to the AFCON, he came in after 15/20 minutes, and I think he had a very good performance in that game.

“We were 1-0 up at the time and we beat Brighton 2-0. So I think he left in in a situation that was good for him and for us because we beat Brighton and he played again. Then he went to the AFCON, did what he usually does, scoring goals.

“Unfortunately, he couldn’t win the tournament, but there were very good teams in that tournament as well. But [he] got to the semi-final and now he’s back with us and, of course, I spoke to him today.

“I’m happy to have him back because, as I said, this season I’ve only had two wingers who would tell me that’s their favourite position, that have played more than 100 minutes in the Premier League, and that’s Mo and Cody [Gakpo].

“To have Mo back is, of course, helpful because in his absence we’ve created a lot of chances and not always converted them. I think I saw today that he scored 45 goals for Liverpool at Champions League level and the next player is a player with five goals, Virgil van Dijk. So it’s nice to have him back.”