This week’s Blood Red column takes a closer look at Mohamed Salah’s current situation following Liverpool’s excellent start to the Premier League season
Paul Gorst is the Liverpool ECHO’s Liverpool FC correspondent and brings readers the inside track on all matters Anfield day in, day out. Now into his seventh season in the role, Paul follows the Reds home and away, wherever they play – including pre season. He brings you all the latest Liverpool news first each day, plus exclusive interviews and insightful, independent analysis. A journalist with over a decade’s worth of experience, he has worked at the ECHO since 2016.
(Image: 2025 Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA)
Liverpool were barely 90 minutes into the defence of their Premier League crown when the image that could yet come to define their season was taken at Anfield.
The sight of a visibly moved Mohamed Salah clapping appreciatively in front of the Kop, caught at an awkward junction somewhere between celebration and mourning as he marked his first goal of the new term, was a powerful one.
And on a night of heightened emotion as Anfield paid its first tribute to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, on August 15 as Bournemouth were seen off 4-2, the snaps of Salah were the abiding shots. Here was Liverpool’s superhero, in a rare moment of relatable vulnerability, the mask slipping just a touch; the cape loosening ever so slightly.
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“It was quite tricky for me because I didn’t prepare myself for that,” Salah explained to Men In Blazers recently of the incident. “Usually, I clap for the fans after the game to tell them, like, thank you for coming for the game. But then once I stood in front of the Kop, they were singing for Diogo.
“Then my emotions came and in my mind (I was thinking about him). Then you just (try) to handle it. But then you can see, many people in a Kop also are like showing their emotions or what they feel. So then you start to break down a little bit.”
Grief is not a linear process and how it manifests on the pitch across the course of this season will be one of the major issues that will confront the champions in a sporting sense, as they continue to somehow try scale football’s greatest heights without their much-loved colleague and friend.
“I don’t think anyone could care less about football when things like that happen,” Andy Robertson said this week. “Such a shock. Devastating for his family first and foremost but obviously devastating for us as a group of lads.
“It puts life into perspective as to what’s important – spending time with your family, spending time with your kids, because you never know what’s around the corner.
“It’s the toughest thing we’ll ever go through. Losing one of your closest mates for me was hugely difficult and it’s something we’ll probably never get over but it’s just something that we have to carry with us.”
Salah, perhaps more than anyone else right now, is still seemingly struggling to emerge from under the cloud of Jota’s sudden and shock death. On the pitch, it’s been a sluggish start, despite the goal against Bournemouth, but the evidence is more obvious in his off-field activity.
The irascible response to a fan account on social media this week that blasted the ‘disrespect’ shown towards Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez was hugely out of character for a player who knows how much weight his words carry online.
While the Reds star was entirely within his rights to demand more acclaim for his outgoing colleagues, the outburst was nonetheless unusual. It was proof that even generational footballers aren’t averse to doom-scrolling.
His showering of Harvey Elliott with praise following his loan exit to Aston Villa, while more in-keeping with the personality of the largely laidback Egyptian, also appeared like someone who was determined to give his colleagues their flowers while they are still around to smell them.
It would be no surprise if Salah has been bewildered by the rapidly changing landscape around him at Liverpool this summer. It’s been a remarkable turnover of playing staff with 10 players in and nine out, many of whom were his good friends, who have all moved on to new challenges having secured the Premier League title in such swashbuckling fashion just a few months.
And if the 33-year-old is finding it difficult to adapt to the changing face of Arne Slot’s squad, it would be entirely understandable if he is also still grieving the loss of his friend Jota, whose death made the man so affectionately known as the ‘Egyptian King’ admit he was fearful of even returning to Merseyside back in July.
In a more purely football sense, Salah conceded recently that he is still learning to play alongside new arrivals such as Hugo Ekitike and with Alexander Isak now added to the ranks alongside Florian Wirtz, it might take some tactical tweaks and work behind the scenes to properly build up the relationships like those he shared with Diaz and in particular Nunez.
And if his insistence to Sky Sports last week before the visit of Arsenal that the Gunners are title favourites due to the amount of the time their broader squad have worked alongside each other with Mikel Arteta had merit, it was also a hint that he feels that this new-look Liverpool will need time. Salah, more than anyone, has earned that right for himself just now.