Mohamed Salah Had Hilariously Honest Answer on New-Look Liverpool Team at PFA Awards

Salah made clear what he thought of this year's team compared to last year's Premier League title-winning team.
Mohamed Salah was asked at the 2025 PFA awards ceremony whether he thought the new Liverpool squad was better than last year's Premier League title-winning squad.
Mohamed Salah was asked at the 2025 PFA awards ceremony whether he thought the new Liverpool squad was better than last year's Premier League title-winning squad. / Phil Noble/Reuters via Imagn Images
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Liverpool star Mohamed Salah walked away with his historic third PFA Player of the Year award on Tuesday, but not before having a funny moment at the podium of the awards ceremony.

Salah became the first player in Premier League history to win the award three times (2018, '22 and '25), a testament to how dominant the Liverpool striker has been in recent years. The Egyptian played a key role in Liverpool's title-winning campaign last season in which he bagged 29 goals and 18 assists, both league-bests.

With the 2025-26 Premier League campaign already underway, Salah was asked to compare this year's new-look Liverpool squad compared to last year's.

"Is this team you're playing in this season even better than last year's title-winning side?"

"No," Salah almost immediately replied.

He then cracked a smile and elaborated:

"Well, it's tricky. I can't say yes or no, it's just tricky. You're signing very good talented players, and also some great players [have left]. You know what happened also with one of our teammates [Diogo Jota]. You need also to give your experience to the new players because they've never played in Liverpool, and playing in Liverpool is not that easy at all with the media they have behind the club. ... We try, me and Virgil [Van Dijk] and the old guys on the team try to give them experience and help them on and off the field."

It's a refreshingly honest answer from Salah, who finds himself in a very different offense in the wake of Luis Diaz's exit and Jota's death. This past summer, Liverpool notably signed 23-year-old French striker Hugo Ekitike as well as broke the bank for highly sought-out Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz. Not to mention, there's drama brewing between Alexander Isak and Newcastle as Isak looks to join the defending champs before the Sept. 1 transfer deadline.

There's no doubt Liverpool added strength in numbers after being crowned kings of the Premier League last year, and their title defense is already off to a strong start with Ekitike and Salah bagging a goal apiece in their 4-2 season-opening win against Bournemouth.

Still, it's clear Salah has some worries about developing chemistry with this year's much younger and relatively unproven squad for rightful reasons.


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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.