Salah made a bet with Slot to rest him defensively and in exchange he will provide offensively, and simply put, Salah lost that bet. Starting with goals, Salah has less opportunities for goals now but a 0.49 xG from last season to 0.25 is quite the drop and can't be tactics only. Same thing can be said for his duels as he dropped from 41% last season to 28 this season. That's not the only thing almost getting halfed as his accuracy dropped from 20% to 11%. Obviously, I am not the first person to bring that up, in fact, the mere existence of those stats means someone else brought them up first.
In regards to Salah saying his relationship with Slot suddenly collapsed, then it is pretty much hearsay. I don't see a problem with Salah coming forward with this information, I just cannot confirm it or deny it.
Next is this
It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus. That is how I am feeling. I think it is very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame. The club made me a lot of promises in the summer and so far I am in the bench for three games, so I can't say they keep the promise.
Someone doesn't want me at the club.
This is a complex statement. From one side, Liverpool is Liverpool when it comes to players to the older players. Firmino was toyed with for a couple of months before being let go. No one asked Mane to stay when he wanted to go, Henderson was told he'd be benched if he stayed. Wijnaldum, no one even bothered. No one even tried with Diaz. The only problem with Salah is that after he did what he did last season, it was impossible not to renew his contract. Salah took extreme advantage of that because you, me, Salah, and his agent know pretty well that Salah's last season can't be replicated. With a salary according to the Athletic could reach 1 million pounds per week with additions.
Okay, but a lot of players in Salah's situation have done the same, mostly lesser players with lesser abilities. It's true that they didn't get as much as Salah but they took advantage nonetheless, I mean Sergi Roberto alone milked those goals against PSG for years. So, I am not saying this to blame Salah but rather simply state that it is true that there are people at the club who don't want Salah and that these are their reasons: You're too expensive and your ROI is low.
Sounds simple, why did I say it's complex then? Well, it's because of the promises part of the statement cannot happen. It's logically impossible for a club to make any sort of promises Salah is insinuating. There's not senseable way for Liverpool to promise Salah to play regardless of performance.
This takes me to the most important part of this whole situation.
Salah Defenders reaction
Let me start by stating that Salah's defenders have been underwhelming. They tried to jump over the main issue. Cassano for example, gave us three minustes of disgusting sewage water verbally by saying things about Carragher like he has two left feet, or that he needs to take a shower before talking about someone like Salah. If he actually believes that, then he wouldn't have spoken about Cristiano because if Carragher is nobody compared to Salah then what is Cassano to Cristiano?
In the grown up world, you can be Cassano and criticise Cristiano, and you can be Carragher or even a pokemon like Skrtel and criticise Salah. Words are measured by the validity of the statement full stop. That's why Al-Mohammady's response was even more hilarious as he stated Salah didn't fail at Chelsea and added that it is no wonder that Cristiano refused to shake hands with Carragher, that Messi called him a donkey, and that Mourinho said Carragher wasn't even among the top 1000 defenders in the Premier League.
By the way, when Messi called Carragher a donkey, he simply being a disrespectful brat, Mourinho has everything and its opposite, so his word is meaningless, and finally Cristiano has always been an immature childman to handling conflicts and what he did to Carragher doesn't even rank top 10 of the worst things he has done.
Most importantly, Carragher didn't even say Salah failed at Chelsea. In his long monologue, Carragher responded to Salah's worst point as Salah had stated he shouldn't fight for his place. Carragher even said Salah does have a special place and shouldn't be dropped if he has a bad game or two, something can't be afforded for most players. Carragher's point can't be fully taken or fully discarded as even though Salah defenders love saying that he is jealous, however, Carragher's most controversial point is still the strongest. You could say that he is jealous or that he was asskissing to Liverpool fans. After all, at best, Carragher was an average defender whose only selling point was loyalty.
It's also the strongest because what Salah said not only can't be said by Salah, but by anyone, not even Messi with all his control over Barcelona has ever dared to say that he shouldn't fight for his place. Fans don't want to hear that, they want to hear the opposite. They want to hear their stars saying they are willing to fight every day for their place. That's why Salah had to contradict himself by saying he doesn't think he is bigger than the club because if you have to play regardless of your performacen, than there is no club left for you to be bigger than, hell, what do we need a a coach or tactics for. Having the blessing to be able to play despite peformance between one game or another is a gift from the club, coach, or fans, not a right.
Carragher's point stood because it is true. He wasn't saying that Salah wasn't the most important or influential, he was simply stating the importance of other players, a point that stands strong because Liverpool's famous comeback against Barcelona in the Champions League, the tournament that ended with Liverpool as champions, didn't even have Salah as a factor. He continued to state that importance by saying that he was known as the guy who failed at Chelsea or his national team, the most decorated in CAF history, because he simply needed supporting teammates. People of course overlooked the entire point and focused on "failed" as a key word for two reasons the first being that's how social media works for interactions and the second is becaue Carragher was simply right.
"But, Salah never said he is the only reason behind Liverpool's success" Well, if he did, we wouldn't be having this debate as Salah wouldn't have played since then for Liverpool because the debate would be over. However, the collection of the statements, coupled with the fact that when your team is improving slightly and your only problem is whether you are benched or not, does say just that.
Back to Club Nacional
The player who shot himself in the heart was the club captain Abdón Porte. Way before the match against Charely FC, Porte had a knee injury and this was before substitutions were allowed so he forced himself to finish the game, the result of that was an injury that would end his career, at least with Nacional because even after he recovered and returned, so did the injury. That is why Nacional replaced him with another midfielder and he was benched, that's why his game against Charely FC was his last. The next morning he was found with a gun in one hand and a note in the other that said "Nacional, if I turn into sand, I will still love you and I won't forget for a second how much I loved you. Goodbye... Forever".
The Overreaction and Irony
I don't want this post to end before I address the reaction to Salah. Whether it is Salah, Slot, Carragher, or anyone commenting, they are right to a certain degree, differing from one another, of course. But the English media was biased against Salah. Let me add that even if the media was 100% correct in their reaction, they still would be biased against Salah. Simply put because three years prior to Salah's interview, another interview happened that was more rude, more disrespectful, more entitled, and more hostile, and not a single writer or pundit spoke.
No one said Cristiano had an ego after his interview with Peirs Morgan like James Pearce did with Salah. Not one attacked Cristiano personally digging through old interviews and statements like they did with Salah. Ironically, the only pundit that did criticise Cristiano and the only one that remained consistent is Jamie Carragher.
In the ends, only one question remains, could clubs, fans, and managers remain in debt to certain a player? If so, can we even quantify it? That remains for the next part.