Without Mohamed Salah, Can Liverpool Win Two Premier League Trophies?

Salah is the scapegoat. Salah has rebelled. Salah is no bigger than Liverpool.

A variety of responses have been given by the global football community regarding the honesty of Liverpool striker, Mohamed Salah, about his current state of mind. In just a matter of months, Salah's status has shifted from being the recipient of the 2024-2025 Premier League Player of the Year award to a deadweight substitute for "The Reds."

As a result of his statements following the Liverpool versus Leeds United match at Elland Road Stadium on Saturday (6/12/2025), Salah has been suspended from the Liverpool squad. He continues to train with his teammates, but Liverpool Manager Arne Slot did not take him to Milan to face Inter Milan on Thursday (10/12/2025) early morning WIB, at San Siro Stadium.

Slot confirmed that Salah is no longer his primary choice of player. Slot remained steadfast and continued to leave Salah out, despite Cody Gakpo and Federico Chiesa being unavailable against Inter due to fitness issues.

"The only one who can answer (about the situation) is Mo (Salah). It's difficult for me to understand the situation. We told him he's not going (to Milan) with us," Slot said at a press conference ahead of the game against Inter, as reported by the BBC.

From Salah's perspective, the player nicknamed the "King of Egypt" is also no longer willing to perform under Slot's management. He requested his family to come to Anfield Stadium for the match against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday (13/12/2025).

I agree that Salah feels he is being made a scapegoat in the current condition of the club. Salah is the only player who can make a difference for the team.

After that, Salah will head to Morocco to join the Egyptian national team at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

"I do not know what happened while I was at the Africa Cup. I asked my family to enjoy Anfield during the match against Brighton," said Salah.

The attitude of Salah is indeed not appropriate. However, that attitude reflects a significant ego, which is the reason he possesses the elite mentality of a football player.

John Terry, a Chelsea legend, stated that Salah's decision to disclose the situation to the public needs to be viewed from two sides, particularly from the player's perspective. As a player who has provided historic nights for the Reds, sitting on the bench for three matches must be uncomfortable.

"I agree that Salah feels he's being made a scapegoat for the club's current situation. Salah is the only player who can make a difference to the team. However, his statement about no longer having a relationship with the manager suggests that the conversation about the manager's decision to him never happened," Terry said in a video uploaded to Sport Bible.

The most important thing, said Phil Jones, former center-back of Manchester United, is the way Slot addresses issues. For him, it is reasonable for Salah to question Slot's decision. Moreover, this situation arose without any communication between Slot and Salah to discuss that decision.

It all felt sudden for Salah. Especially at the start of the season, when Salah wasn't in a good mood.

He lost three of his friends, Diogo Jota, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Luis Diaz. They were not just close friends of Salah in the locker room, but they also understood Salah on the field.

"I feel like Mo's relationship with his manager is already strained. For him to question what he's done for Liverpool is a sign the manager hasn't given him the explanation he needs. Players have to respect their managers, but managers also have to give players a logical explanation because players aren't robots; they have emotions," Jones said in a Sports Illustrated podcast.

Many parties can discuss anything about Salah, including Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher. He revealed that Salah is not the main face of Liverpool. Without him, the Reds would still thrive in the Klopp era and the early days of their partnership with Slot.

"Mo (Salah) always talks about himself. I remind Mo and his agent that he was a flop at Chelsea. He never won anything before he came to Liverpool," Carragher said on Monday Night Football on Sky Sports.

However, the statistics tell a different story. Without Salah's contribution of goals, Liverpool would not have been champions last season. They even fell out of the top four last season.

Kompas calculated that 16 of Salah's 29 goals in the 2024-2025 Premier League season were crucial to the Reds' path to becoming champions.

The collection of 16 goals was achieved in 13 matches. The quantity of matches is calculated from the games in which Salah scored the first goal, equalized the score, and ensured the team secured a draw or a win.

Salah's goals in those 13 matches accounted for 27 points for Liverpool. Without Salah's goals, Liverpool only collected eight points from those 13 matches. Under these circumstances, the Reds concluded the season with only 67 points. This means that Liverpool merely finished in fifth place.

A different situation for the 2019-2020 English Premier League championship title. At that time, Salah scored nine crucial goals that accounted for 21 points from eight matches for Liverpool. If Salah had not scored in those eight games, Liverpool would have only lost 10 points, thus still becoming champions with a total of 89 points. Manchester City in second place had 81 points.

Then, in the 2020-2021 and 2022-2023 seasons, without Salah's crucial goals, Liverpool would have been knocked out of the European club rankings.

In the 2020-2021 season, Salah scored 13 crucial goals in 10 matches. This number of goals contributed to Liverpool's total of 24 goals, allowing them to finish in third place. If Salah had not scored in those 10 games, Liverpool would have lost 12 points, resulting in a finish in 10th place.

In the following two seasons, Salah scored 10 goals that were crucial for earning important points in nine matches, resulting in 23 points. Without Salah's goals, the Reds would have lost 13 points. As a result, they finished only in ninth place, instead of occupying the fifth position in the actual final standings.

In this season, Salah has indeed only scored four goals in the league. Nevertheless, one of his goals against Burnley in the fourth week helped Liverpool secure three points.

If Salah fails to convert the penalty in the additional time of the second half against Burnley, the Reds will only accumulate 21 points from 15 matches. They will be pushed out of the top 10 zone, sitting in 12th place.

By counting assists, Salah has contributed six goals for Liverpool in the English Premier League 2025-2026. He is only surpassed by Cody Gakpo, who has recorded seven goal contributions.

In individual statistics, Salah still leads the list of Liverpool players with the most recorded shots (2.5 per game) and shots on target (0.8 per game). He also produces the most key passes (2.2 per game).

If Liverpool and Slot do not extend an olive branch, Salah will leave the Reds with a record of 363 goal contributions since the 2017-2018 season. Specifically in the English Premier League, Salah's goal tally reaches 276 goals.

That record places Salah far ahead of Steven Gerrard, who created 210 goal contributions in the Premier League. Undoubtedly, Salah deserves to be called the best player for Liverpool in domestic competitions.

Without Salah, Liverpool might still be like the Carragher era, struggling to compete in the Premier League…