Graeme Souness says Salah is the most ‘selfish’ player he has ever witnessed | OneFootball

Former Liverpool player and manager Graeme Souness believes Mohamed Salah is the most “selfish” player he has ever witnessed.

Souness’ brutal assessment of Salah comes after the Egyptian was involved in an argument with manager Jurgen Klopp whilst being substituted onto the field during Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with West Ham last Saturday.

The Scotsman, who won five league titles and three European Cups with Liverpool as a player, believes that Salah was the main instigator of the touchline clash.

He also suggested that now is the right time for Liverpool to cash in on the 31-year-old, despite recent reports indicating Salah’s intention to remain at the club next season.

It is certainly not the first time Souness has criticised Salah. Back in 2021, Souness wrote in his column in The Times that Salah was the best player in the world at the time, but labelled him greedy.

Speaking on Three Up Front, William Hill’s new podcast featuring Simon Jordan, Troy Deeney and Souness, the 70-year-old said: “I believe Mohamed Salah is off and leaving Liverpool. He has been fabulous for Liverpool, but if he leaves for the Saudi Pro League then he’ll be the biggest star in that part of the world.

“He no doubt has an exceptionally large opinion of himself, and he’ll have been angry at not starting the game against West Ham last week. I think the situation with Jürgen Klopp was a reaction to only being brought on with 10 minutes to go – it was more Salah than it was Klopp in that confrontation.

“Salah is the most selfish player I have ever witnessed. Even prior to that game, whenever Klopp takes him off, he is never happy about it. That is what you want from your players, if you take them off on two goals, they should want to stay on to score a third. When Sadio Mané was there they’d fall out all the time.”

“Salah has been world-class in his time at Liverpool. Goals change games and his goals have had an enormous influence on Liverpool since he’s been at the club. I think he still gets into the Arsenal team and certainly would’ve gotten into the Manchester City team over the past five years.”

Souness continued to discuss the wider issues at Liverpool, in particular, their recent signs of inferiority during games. He labelled his former side’s defeat to Everton two weeks ago, which left Liverpool’s title charge in tatters, as “unacceptable” and also raised concerns that the team are being “bullied” by their opponents in recent games.

“When the going gets tough and another player puts it on him, Salah will disappear from a game,” said Souness. “Last season at Old Trafford Lisandro Martínez went through him early on, and for the rest of the game Salah was looking over his shoulder for Martínez – he doesn’t like that side of the game. He’ll never get himself hurt.

“It ties into the fact that in the last two weeks, Liverpool have shown something that I didn’t think they were capable of, they’re getting bullied. It happened when they got beaten 3-0 at Anfield by Atalanta and it happened against Everton at Goodison Park not so long ago.

“Everton had too much passion and aggression and Liverpool got bullied again. You have to be mean and angry to play football, but for whatever reason that has gone completely from Liverpool’s game. That is the difference between winning and losing matches.”