2025-12-10 11:31:11

Steven Gerrard has insisted Liverpool need Mohamed Salah to recover their season despite the forward’s explosive claim he had been “thrown under the bus”.

Salah, 33, said he no longer had a relationship with manager Arne Slot after being benched for three straight games, deepening uncertainty over whether he will play for the club again.

Even so, Gerrard has argued The Reds must work with the forward to improve their relationship, as he is the “best player” at Antfield.

Speaking to TNT Sports, the former Liverpool star, 45, said: “He’s obviously really upset he’s not playing, which I respect. He won’t sit out of the team, which I respect.

“The couple of lines about throwing people under the bus [is] wrong. He needs to reverse a little bit away from that.”

Gerrard stressed that senior figures must step in to stabilise the situation at a critical moment for the Premier League champions.

He said: “He needs to deal with that with the manager. This needs Virgil van Dijk to go, ‘How are we sorting this out for the benefit of not the club, or the team, but the fans?’”

Salah’s comments followed his omission from the 3-3 draw with Leeds United and his continued absence from the starting XI.

Slot left him out of the Champions League squad that beat Inter Milan 1-0 on Tuesday (09.12.25), insisting it was not related to their strained relationship.

The Egyptian, Liverpool’s third-highest all-time scorer, will now depart for the Africa Cup of Nations and may not return until the January window opens.

Gerrard, drawing from his own volatile moments as a player, urged perspective.

He said: “I’ve seen this and I’ve lived it. I lived it with [Luis] Suarez when he fell out with Brendan [Rogers]. I’ve been there myself … I did the Salah statement in 30 seconds against United when I got sent off. So no one’s perfect.”

He added that Salah’s emotional reaction will likely cool once tensions settle.

He said: “In time when this all calms Mo will go, ‘I shouldn’t have said that… I was a bit emotional, I was a bit hasty.’”

But Gerrard underlined that Liverpool, suffering a dip in form and struggling for goals, cannot afford to lose their most prolific attacker.

He said: “Liverpool football club needs Mo Salah, back playing well, back scoring goals, because he is the best player, the best scorer and he will help them get out of this. If this goes on this is bigger than what we all know and what we see.”

Slot admitted he had “no clue” whether Salah would play for Liverpool again, but insisted he believed “there is always a return for a player”.

The manager said he had been surprised by the forward’s public comments but maintained Salah had trained well and behaved respectfully before Saturday’s (06.12.25) outburst.

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