Mohamed Salah Explains Why ‘Now Is the Time’ to Leave Liverpool

The Reds legend hinted at some significant issues.

Mohamed Salah will call time on his Liverpool career this summer. | Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

Mohamed Salah has admitted a lot happened “behind the scenes” that left him ready to leave Liverpool this summer.

Salah will walk away from the final 12 months of a two-year contract he signed just last summer, and in an interview with Sky Sports, he was pressed for an explanation of a move which nobody saw coming at the start of the current campaign.

“I think personally—I’m not going into details, I’m not trying to play around—but last season I wasn’t ready to go because you break the records, you win the Premier League, it’s not right,” he explained.

“But now with everything going on in the season—I won’t go into details—it’s like, ‘You know what, it’s time. I want to go.’

“And of course there is a lot of things behind the scenes people don’t know about it, but yeah, I think now is the time. I have peace with it.’”

Similarly, Salah also told TNT Sports: “To go through the year, the season, where I feel like, ‘O.K., this is the right thing to do now and I have peace with it.’

“This season was tough for all of us and I don’t want to say much more on that.”

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What Could Salah Be Talking About?

There was clearly tension between Salah and Arne Slot. | Alex Livesey/Danehouse/Getty Images

The challenges at Liverpool started in July 2025 with the death of winger Diogo Jota. Speculating over the impact of that incident on the squad is unfair but Salah made no attempt to hide a flood of tears as he applauded a rendition of Jota’s famous chant after Liverpool’s opening day victory over Bournemouth.

Five months later, Salah commanded headlines with a shocking outburst against manager Arne Slot, with whom he claimed he had “no relationship” after being benched for three games in a row.

The Reds boss has denied being responsible for Salah’s departure but admitted he had no issues if fans wanted to view him as the “bad guy” of the situation.

With all that going on behind the scenes, there have also been plenty of obvious issues at Liverpool. The team’s underwhelming form left them out of the race to defend their Premier League crown before the midway point of the campaign, with Salah’s own output nosediving after what was arguably the best season of his career last year.

Slot admitted this year soon turned into a transitional season for Liverpool, who brought in a number of new players to replace the departing Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez, among others.

“I wouldn’t say I expected it like this, but I think if you look back to when I won the PFA Player of the Year, they asked me on the stage what do you think about Liverpool’s season,” Salah told Stan Sport.

“The new players coming, very good players, very good signings. I said, ‘It’s tricky because it’s very tricky to have like five or six players new to the team, things changing in the dressing room.’

“It’s very tricky with the new guys. We don’t have that bond yet because it’s everyone new, and I was hoping that this season we just try to help them as much as possible because it’s very, very important for the dressing room.”

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