Wayne Rooney Urges Arne Slot to Drop Mohamed Salah for Final Game
Wayne Rooney has urged Arne Slot to make a brutal call on Mohamed Salah and leave the Liverpool star out of the club’s final game of the season against Brentford, accusing the Egyptian of publicly undermining his manager and protecting his own reputation.
On The Wayne Rooney Show, the former Manchester United and England captain did not bother to soften the edges. For him, Salah’s latest social media outburst – calling for a return to the “heavy metal” football associated with Jurgen Klopp – crossed a clear line.
Rooney sees it not as nostalgia, but as a dig.
“He wants to play heavy metal football, so he’s basically saying he wants Jurgen Klopp football,” Rooney said, before delivering the sting. “Now I don’t think Mo Salah can cope with that type of football anymore. I think his legs have gone to play at that high tempo and high intensity.”
In Rooney’s eyes, this was no innocent comment about style. It was a statement loaded with implication: a lack of belief in Slot, and a message that the current set-up is beneath him.
“He's almost just dropped the grenade and said he doesn't trust and believe in Arne Slot,” Rooney argued, “and almost thrown his teammates who are going to be there next season and let them have to deal with that as well and put them into a position.”
This is not the first flashpoint between Salah and his manager. Earlier in the season, the forward was dropped after accusing Slot and Liverpool of throwing him “under the bus” over his reduced game time. The tension has lingered ever since.
Salah’s legacy at Anfield is secure in one sense. He is one of the greatest players to wear the shirt, with 257 goals for the club and a catalogue of defining moments. Yet Rooney believes the current noise around him is less about principle and more about deflection from a season in which his own standards have dipped.
Last year, Salah spearheaded Liverpool’s title win with 29 league goals. This campaign tells a different story: 12 goals in 40 appearances across all competitions, with the champions now staring at a fifth-place finish.
“I think Salah's trying to vindicate himself and make himself feel better because he's had a very poor season,” Rooney said. “So I think he's been very selfish in what he's done in the two occasions. It's a shame and fans will be on his side, but I think when you look deeper into it and having been in a dressing room in a similar situation to that as well, Mo Salah knows exactly what he's doing.”
Rooney has lived the power struggle himself. He drew a direct line from Salah’s situation to his own clash with Sir Alex Ferguson, when a disagreement saw him omitted from Ferguson’s final match at Old Trafford. The message back then was unmistakable: the manager comes first.
That experience shapes his advice to Slot now.
“If I was Arne Slot, I’d have him nowhere near the stadium in the last game,” Rooney insisted. “I had it with Alex Ferguson. I had a disagreement and fall out and at Alex Ferguson’s last game at Old Trafford, he left me out of the squad for that reason. That’s your manager. You can’t publicly disrespect him twice the way he has and get away with it.”
For Rooney, this is about authority as much as tactics. Let Salah walk out one more time on his terms, and the hierarchy in the dressing room blurs.
“And that’s where if I was Arne Slot, I’d have to pull rank and just say, listen, you’re not coming anywhere near the place on Saturday, whether you like it or not,” he added. “I really doubt he will do it, but I think he should.”
The dilemma is complicated by sentiment. Salah is expected to leave the club, and the instinct at Anfield will be to give him a rousing farewell. Rooney does not dispute his status, but questions whether this is the right moment for ceremony.
“Of course he deserves a good send off but does he deserve it just for this?” Rooney asked. “It’s the second time he’s done it. It’s just a shame to see one of the great icon of Premier League players leave the Premier League probably in this situation.”
All of this plays out against a wider backdrop of unease at Liverpool. The title defence has disintegrated, the intensity that once defined them has drained away, and the aura of Anfield has dimmed.
Rooney believes that shift is as audible as it is visible.
“I think that's the biggest change for me where you go to Anfield, the first thing you want to do is quieten the crowd,” he said. “But I think actually by Liverpool not pressing they're quietening the crowd down themselves and frustrating the Liverpool fans. And so that's the big, big change for me.”
The crowd used to ride the press, feeding off the chaos and energy. Now, with the team sitting off and the results faltering, the noise has changed. Groans instead of roars. Frustration instead of fear.
Rooney admits he is torn on Slot’s future. A title last season, a collapse this one. Two conflicting realities.
“I’m quite split in should he go or should he stay because he won the league last season, I think he deserves a bit more time, in terms of what we’ve seen this season,” he said.
Yet his sharpest criticism is reserved for the players.
“I don't feel right or good saying this, some players look like they've downed tools and that's a big problem if you see that or you feel that for the manager.”
That is the landscape into which Slot must step for the final game: a restless crowd, a fading champion, and a superstar whose parting words have lit a fuse. Rooney’s stance is clear. To rebuild control, the manager has to make a statement.
Whether Salah walks out at Anfield one last time, or watches from afar, will say plenty about who truly holds the power in Liverpool’s next era.
