{"id":91085,"date":"2025-05-10T21:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/91085\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T21:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T21:52:12","slug":"mo-salah-admits-tension-with-liverpool-team-mate-and-off-pitch-distancing-football-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/91085\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Salah admits ‘tension’ with Liverpool team-mate and off-pitch distancing | Football | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mohamed Salah<\/a> has revealed there was ‘tension’ behind the scenes at Liverpool<\/a> between himself and former Reds winger Sadio Mane<\/a>. Both players arrived early in Jurgen Klopp<\/a>‘s tenure and formed part of a deadly front three alongside Roberto Firmino. They won almost every available trophy before Mane and Firmino left for Saudi Arabia, breaking up their iconic partnership.<\/p>\n

It was often speculated that Salah and Mane had a frosty relationship behind the scenes at Anfield. One famous incident in 2019 saw Mane spit feathers at the Liverpool<\/a> bench after Salah failed to pass to him for a simple tap-in. Rumours of a rift were never confirmed despite the pair quite clearly not seeing eye-to-eye.<\/p>\n

Salah has since addressed the speculation for the very first time, telling L’Equipe<\/a> that his relationship with Mane was fraught with tension. He added that it was a strictly professional dynamic, with the duo never considering themselves as friends.<\/p>\n

“Yes, there was tension with Sadio,” admitted Salah. “Mind you, we were professional until the end. I don’t think it affected the team. Off the pitch, we weren’t very close, but we always respected each other.”<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the various media headlines about their rocky relationship, Salah added: “I don’t care. People can think what they want, it’s their right, but I invite everyone to note that the person who provided Mane with the most assists is me.<\/p>\n

“We can look at the facts, but it’s obviously easier to throw out phrases like that, it makes the headlines. I know how it works, as long as it remains within the limits of respect.<\/p>\n

“That’s fine with me, but that doesn’t mean that this opinion is true. At the end of the day, I know what I did, and my conscience is clear.”<\/p>\n

Firmino, meanwhile, previously offered his take on Salah and Mane’s strained dynamic in his book Si Senor: My Liverpool<\/a> Years.<\/p>\n

“I knew those guys very well, maybe better than anyone,” wrote the Brazilian. “It was me out there on the field, right in the middle of them. I saw first-hand the looks, the grimaces, the body language, the dissatisfaction when one was mad at the other.<\/p>\n

“I was the link between them in our attacking play and the firefighter in those moments. For many, that disagreement between Sadio and Mo [in 2019] was the first. For some, the first and last, but I knew it had been brewing since the previous season.<\/p>\n

“My instinct and my duty was to defuse the situation between them. Pour water on the fire, never petrol. They were never best friends, each kept himself to himself.<\/p>\n

“It was rare to see the two of them talking and I’m not sure if that had to do with the Egypt-Senegal rivalry in African competitions. I truly don’t know. But they also never stopped talking, never severed ties. They always acted with the utmost professionalism.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mohamed Salah has revealed there was ‘tension’ behind the scenes at Liverpool between himself and former Reds winger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,8641,4884,179,763,1126,1128,101,43147,43148,33024,4197,43146,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-91085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-football-news","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-liverpool-fc","14":"tag-liverpool-news","15":"tag-mohamed-salah","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-premier-league-fixtures","18":"tag-premier-league-highlights","19":"tag-roberto-firmino","20":"tag-sadio-mane","21":"tag-salah-mane","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}