Ex-France international Thierry Henry has criticized Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah for his comments after the Reds’ 3-3 draw with Leeds United on Saturday, with Henry saying Salah took the “wrong” approach despite some understandable frustration over a lack of playing time.
Salah was an unused substitute on Saturday for the second time in three matches, a match that stretched his goal contribution drought to seven games. The Egypt international was critical of manager Arne Slot’s approach after the match, as well as the club as a whole, during a season that has been far from perfect for both Liverpool and Salah himself.
“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,” Salah said on Saturday. “I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager, and all of a sudden, we don’t have any relationship. I don’t know why, but it seems to me, how I see it, that someone doesn’t want me in the club … I don’t accept this situation. I have done so much for this club.”
Salah is still training with the team but was omitted from the Reds’ traveling squad for Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League match at Inter and has received a lot of flak since his comments, including from Henry.
“Nobody’s talking about what Mo Salah has achieved in the game,” Henry said on the UEFA Champions League Today pre-match show. “We’re talking about moments in time that I think he got wrong. You do not talk about your personal situation openly when your team is struggling. You do it in the dressing room. I’ve done it. I went to the dressing room and smashed everything in. I went to the office of the boss and complained about stuff.”
Henry went on to compare Salah’s circumstances to his own at Barcelona during the 2009-10 season, when he was left out of the team’s squad at Villarreal.
“When I was at Barcelona, I went away with the team,” Henry said. “They put me in the stands. Did you hear me talking about it? No … We won the treble the year before but I wasn’t performing so if you’re not performing, you put yourself in the situation where you leave the door open for someone to [get] in. I traveled, we arrived at the stadium, I’m in the stands. Am I going to make a fuss about it? Am I going to make it about myself? Am I going to talk to the press after? I have achieved stuff in the game but team first. If I had to say something – and by the way, I said it. I said it to [manager] Pep [Guardiola], what I thought about what was happening, but not publicly.”
Henry believes Salah should not have gone public with his complaints at all, arguing that it endangers team dynamics.
“You need to protect your team at all costs, all the time,” Henry said. “I can understand you want to speak. I can understand the frustration. I don’t [understand] the how and the when. That doesn’t make sense to me. That was wrong and when people talk about relationships, the only relationship a coach wants to have with a player is for him to perform. If you’re not performing, then your position is in danger. It’s not [your] due to have a position, especially at a club like Liverpool … It has nothing to do, again, with what he has achieved. I repeat – I love Mo Salah. I love what he has done in the game. That’s a different topic. There, that’s not how you go about stuff.”
