Mo Salah experienced a rare sight on Sunday \u2013 watching an entire Premier League match from the bench as Liverpool defeated West Ham.<\/p>\n
Before the weekend, the Egyptian had missed only five minutes of league action all season, so his omission from the starting XI at the London Stadium was immediately noticeable. Arne Slot opted not to introduce him at any stage of the 2-0 win, a call which Sky Sports\u2019 Peter Smith said sent \u201cshockwaves\u201d, especially after Wayne Rooney publicly suggested Salah should be dropped due to his slow start to the campaign, with just five goals so far.<\/p>\n
Slot praises Salah\u2019s response to being left out<\/p>\n
Speaking at Tuesday\u2019s press conference ahead of Liverpool\u2019s clash with Sunderland, Slot was asked whether Salah had been unhappy about losing his starting place.<\/p>\n
The head coach responded (via the Liverpool Echo):
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a fair assumption and a normal reaction for someone of his level. Of course a player isn\u2019t happy when he\u2019s not playing. He wasn\u2019t the only one, I can tell you.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he acted was exactly what you\u2019d expect from a true professional. He supported his teammates and handled the situation really well.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t perform every three days if you\u2019re driven by emotion alone, but Mo is incredibly disciplined. He\u2019s always been the model professional, including over the last few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salah now has something to prove after shock exclusion<\/p>\n
While Slot will publicly defend his star forward, it\u2019s natural that Salah won\u2019t have been pleased to be left out. Still, you\u2019d expect a player of his mentality to respect the coach\u2019s decision and channel that frustration into winning back his place.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s choice underlined the reality that no one in the squad is guaranteed a start. With three matches in quick succession before next Tuesday, rotation is essential, and the Dutchman made it clear that performances must stay consistently high.<\/p>\n
Salah will know his recent form hasn\u2019t matched his usual standards, and with the fast turnaround, he could quickly find himself back in the XI. As Mail Sport journalist Lewis Steele suggested, being dropped might just sharpen his motivation to show Slot he remains Liverpool\u2019s attacking reference point.<\/p>\n
Even if he begins on the bench against Sunderland, expect him to return to the starting lineup soon\u2014and don\u2019t discount the possibility of him making an immediate impact when called upon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mo Salah experienced a rare sight on Sunday \u2013 watching an entire Premier League match from the bench as Liverpool defeated West Ham. Before the weekend, the Egyptian had missed only five minutes of league action all season, so his omission from the starting XI at the London Stadium was immediately noticeable. Arne Slot opted …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":55915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/salah-slot-1200x672.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55916,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55913\/revisions\/55916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}