Graeme Souness has launched an astonishing attack on Mohamed Salah, claiming the Liverpool star is the “most selfish player” he’s ever seen and “disappears” from tough games, allowing his side to get “bullied”.
Salah has been in the spotlight since clashing with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp on the sidelines during the 2-2 draw at West Ham. He was furious at having been benched for the second time in a week and had to be held back by Darwin Nunez as he prepared to come on as a second-half substitute.
The Egyptian remains Liverpool’s top scorer this season, with 24 goals and 13 assists in 41 games across all competitions, but his form has tailed off recently. Salah has just one goal in his past six matches and that was a consolation penalty against Atalanta as the Reds slumped out of the Europa League.
He was dropped against Fulham and West Ham and failed to make an impact in the Merseyside derby defeat by Everton, which effectively ended Liverpool’s chances of winning the Premier League title in Klopp’s final season. Recent events have intensified suggestions Salah could leave in the summer transfer window and club legend Souness has welcomed the prospect.
“I believe Mohamed Salah is off and leaving Liverpool. He has been fabulous for Liverpool, but if he leaves to the Saudi Pro League then he’ll be the biggest star in that part of the world,” he said on the William Hill podcast, Three Up Front.
“He no doubt has an exceptionally large opinion of himself, and he’ll have been angry at not starting the game against West Ham last week. I think the situation with Jurgen Klopp was a reaction to only being brought on with 10 minutes to go – it was more Salah than it was Klopp in that confrontation.
“Salah is the most selfish player I have ever witnessed. Even prior to that game, whenever Klopp takes him off, he is never happy about it. That is what you want from your players, if you take them off on two goals, they should want to stay on to score a third. When Sadio Mane was there they’d fall out all the time.”
Salah has 210 goals in 346 games for Liverpool, putting him fifth on the club’s all-time top scorers list. He is six goals ahead of Darwin Nunez this season, but Souness insists that the 31-year-old has a bad habit of drifting out of matches when his team are struggling and most need him.
“When the going gets tough and another player puts it on him, Salah will disappear from a game,” Souness added. “Last season at Old Trafford, Lisandro Martínez went through him early on, and for the rest of the game Salah was looking over his shoulder for Martinez – he doesn’t like that side of the game. He’ll never get himself hurt.
“It ties into the fact that in the last two weeks Liverpool have shown something that I didn’t think they were capable of, they’re getting bullied. It happened when they got beaten 3-0 at Anfield by Atalanta and it happened against Everton at Goodison Park not so long ago.
“Everton had too much passion and aggression and Liverpool got bullied again. You have to be mean and angry to play football, but for whatever reason that has gone completely from Liverpool’s game. That is the difference between winning and losing matches. As a Liverpool player, if there’s one game where you need to turn up with aggression and fight, it is against Everton. Of all the games not to turn up, to perform like that against Everton is unacceptable.”