Curtis Jones has revealed Mohamed Salah apologised to the Liverpool squad for the fallout from his interview criticising the club and Arne Slot.
Salah was omitted from Liverpool’s Champions League win against Inter having accused the club of throwing him under a bus in response to a poor run of results. The striker also claimed his relationship with Slot had broken down and that he had earned his position in the team after eight phenomenal seasons.
Slot has refused to disclose whether he received an apology from Salah before recalling the 33-year-old for last Saturday’s win over Brighton. At a press conference on Friday, the head coach said he would not comment further on the Salah situation to avoid creating “a distraction” while the Egypt international is at the Africa Cup of Nations.
However Jones, in an interview with Sky Sports, said Salah had spoken to his teammates about the furore that followed his incendiary interview after the 3-3 draw at Leeds and apologised.
The Liverpool midfielder said: “Mo is his own man and he can say his own stuff. He apologised to us and was like: ‘If I’ve affected anybody or made you feel any sort of way, I apologise.’ That’s the man that he is. I can only speak from me knowing Mo and how he is with us and how he acted on that. He was positive as well. He was the exact same Mo, he had a big smile on his face and everybody was exactly the same with him. I guess it’s just part of wanting to be a winner”
Jones insisted he would have a bigger problem with a teammate being happy to sit on the bench than Salah claiming he should be in the team. “I get that there are certain ways you can go about things,” he said. “But if a lad’s fine to just be on the bench and he doesn’t want to play and help the team, then I think that’s more of an issue.”
Liverpool are unbeaten in the five games since Slot reacted to damaging home defeats by Nottingham Forest and PSV by dropping Salah to the bench. Jones believes the forward’s outspoken comments were not designed to destabilise the team.
“When there’s been any sort of anger from us, including myself, it’s always been from a good place,” he said. “In the moment, it might not have come out in the right way, but it’s never been to affect the team, the staff, the manager, anybody like that. We’re past that now and we’re gelling well as a team, playing well and starting to win games.”
