Florian Wirtz has rejected suggestions that Mohamed Salah’s social media post after last week’s 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa was aimed at Arne Slot.
The Liverpool playmaker also dismissed claims that the squad are no longer behind Slot as the Reds prepare for Sunday’s crucial Premier League clash with Brentford in their push for Champions League qualification.
Liverpool’s defeat at Villa Park, their 12th league loss of the season, was followed by a post from Salah less than 24 hours later in which he appeared to question Slot’s preferred playing style.
Slot said: “I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies.”
The comment was widely interpreted as another swipe at Slot after Salah claimed in December he had been “thrown under the bus” by the Liverpool head coach following three consecutive Premier League matches on the bench for the first time in his Anfield career.
However, Wirtz insists Salah has earned the right to speak openly and denied the post was intended to fuel speculation of a breakdown in the pair’s relationship behind the scenes.
The Germany international, who ‘liked’ the post on Instagram, also explained to The Athletic why he felt it was important to publicly support Salah’s frustrations.
“Mo has known the club for a long time now,” Florian Wirtz said. “He’s just an honest guy. He says what he thinks. This should be OK. If you want to speak, you should be able to speak.
“Of course, it was a bit of a difficult season for all of us, including Mo. In my opinion, it got made bigger than it was. I don’t think he attacked anyone.”“I like Mo’s mentality in general – how he sees things, how he works. He’s a guy you can listen to, because he has seen a lot.
“He wasn’t attacking anyone. With the ‘likes’ players gave, I think it was made too big.
“For me, it was just a thing that he wanted to say because he’s leaving. He wanted to make everyone in the club alert that we have to work more and do better.
“We are all anything but happy with this season. I think we can still make a little bit out of it by qualifying for the Champions League on Sunday.
“We have to do that. Then in the summer, we need to clear our heads and attack next season, because we have a very good squad and we can do much better.”
Wirtz, who is in line to start on Sunday against Keith Andrews’s side, added: “The outside world is always trying to create something between the team and the manager.
“But it’s totally different in this building. We are working well every day with this manager and his staff. There is no thought about not being behind the manager. This is just something (talked about) on the outside.”
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