Mohamed Salah clashes with Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp as he waits to go on during the Premier League match against West Ham at London Stadium. Photograph: Justin Setterfield/Getty Imageson the London Stadium touchline will take some beating. This is what happens when power slips away. This, sadly, is the way that it ends.
Say no more, Mo. We get it. Klopp had tried to play the incident down during his post-match press conference, but Salah lit the fuse. The Egyptian winger was hardly acting as the model of diplomacy, even if his remark was delivered in a jokey way. Far more preferable would have been Salah providing the same kind of spark on the pitch during a spell that has seen Liverpool’s season go up in smoke.
Either way it would be shame if the relationship between two of the greatest figures in Liverpool’s history is broken. Salah has been the standout player of Klopp’s reign, the genius in attack, the driving force behind so many famous wins. But the mind goes back to Alex Ferguson announcing that the 2001-02 season would be his final year at United. Uncertainty set in, motivation dipped and United lost the title to Arsenal. Ferguson had given his players an excuse to let their standards dip.
But this is an unfocused team, overseen by a weary, distracted, unhappy manager. If they were on their game, Liverpool would have smashed West Ham after going 2-1 up. Instead their title challenge fizzled out in a blaze of missed chances and shoddy defending.