Arne Slot insists he has no regrets with how he has handled Mohamed Salah this season after the Liverpool forward confirmed his intention to leave at the end of the campaign.
Salah revealed in a social media video late last month that this campaign would be his final one as a Reds player, bringing the curtain down a decorated period that lasted nine years where he won two Premier League titles and the 2019 Champions League among several other honours.
The Egypt captain, who is third on the club's all-time list of scorers with 255, dropped a bombshell after a 3-3 draw with Leeds United in December when he accused the club of "being thrown under the bus" during a difficult period that saw the champions lose nine of 12 games between September and November.
Salah also said in the same post-match interview that his relationship with Slot had broken down after he was taken out of the starting lineup for three successive games for the first time in his Anfield career, for matches with West Ham United, Sunderland and Leeds, where he launched the broadside on December 6.
Speaking ahead of Saturday's trip to Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-final, Slot maintained he handled the situation correctly and denied that Salah's public intention to leave was solely due to that specific period last year.
"I look back at this season thinking that I made a few decisions that could have been better but I’m not talking about this specific thing with Mo," Slot said.
"I don't regret many things I did during a little longer than one-and-a-half years together. Again, the assumption that if he's not playing that he wants to leave - that's the assumption being made - then he would have left one-and-a-half years ago.
"I can remember West Ham away when he wasn't playing (under Jurgen Klopp in 2024). I wasn't there. He didn’t decide to leave. The assumption is that if you don’t play in these games and all of a sudden wants to leave, it is an assumption and maybe it is true or maybe it isn’t. But history has shown is that he did not do that previously and had a great season after that.
"When things like this are announced to the outside world, I don't think it's a surprise for you to hear that there are a lot of discussions, talks going on between him, his agent, the club, me and him, before this comes out in the public.
"But, as I always said, and I'm not going to change on what has been said between the two of us, or between him and the club, that is something I'm not going to share.
"If he wants to share his reasons why he did it then it's up to him, but that's not up to me to speak for him. I hear a lot being said about Liverpool and one of the funny things about Liverpool is that almost everything that is out there is not true.
"What I mean is I see sometimes that we are trying to sign players. I'm like, ‘what is everybody talking about? We're not even considering the player or even talking about him at all?’ I think that's a big, big compliment to the people who work here.
"Even when I signed, there were a lot of other names mentioned when I already knew I already signed. So that says something about Liverpool."
Slot added: "So what appears to be true, especially in terms of Liverpool, is maybe not always true. I think Mo has earned the right completely to decide whenever he thinks he should leave. And he's done so many things for this club. He has to make up his own mind and that's what he did.
"After that incident you are referring to [at Leeds], which are incidents that happen everywhere around the world almost every day when it comes to football, you know what has happened afterwards? He went to the AFCON and when he was back at the AFCON, he played every single game.
"So that's the answer to your question. The only one who can talk about it is Mo himself. So you are now making the assumption that he wants to leave because he was out for six days. But that doesn't have to be true.
"I would be surprised if there's not moment when Mo's going to share his thoughts about why he made the decision he made. It's not up to me to do that. It's up to him. And I would not go into all these assumptions, and I would be, how do you say this in English? I would be careful with assumptions, yes."
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