Arne

Mohamed Salah’s latest unprompted public outburst will ratchet up the pressure on struggling Liverpool head coach Arne Slot by several notches.

Salah first laid bare his frustrations with Slot and Liverpool after the 3-3 draw at Leeds United in December, claiming he had been “thrown under the bus” after being dropped following the Premier League champions’ poor start to the season.

This time the Egyptian, who is scheduled to play his final game for Liverpool against Brentford at Anfield on the closing weekend of the season, took to social media after Friday’s 4-2 loss at Aston Villa to launch a thinly-veiled attack on their style under Slot and the failures this season.

Slot has been losing credit fast since winning the Premier League in his first season after succeeding Jurgen Klopp.

The contrast was sharp between Unai Emery’s vibrant Aston Villa – who confirmed Champions League football next season with victory at Villa Park and who are in the Europa League Final – and porous, weak Liverpool.

And then came the latest twist in this troubled, turbulent Liverpool season.

This sort of pronouncement could justifiably be seen as Salah repaying his head coach by throwing Slot under the bus, the breakdown of their relationship providing a fractious backdrop to a season in which Liverpool‘s title defence has disintegrated.

If Salah’s attack clearly does not help Slot, who has lost the faith of many Liverpool fans as the Anfield atmosphere becomes increasingly toxic, then his analysis of “us crumbling to yet another defeat this season” hardly reflects well on his own team-mates either.

The sub-plot to Salah’s post is that a large number of those same Liverpool supporters see Xabi Alonso as Slot’s natural successor.

But the former Real Madrid manager now looks destined for Chelsea, who hope to announce the Spaniard as their new permanent head coach in the coming days.

Alonso has long been touted as a future Liverpool manager, having won the Champions League as a player and then impressed hugely during his time as Bayer Leverkusen boss.

Some hoped he would replace Klopp two years ago, but he instead opted to remain with Leverkusen and Slot came in instead.

It would seem again the timing just will not quite marry up for those dreaming of a fairytale return to Anfield.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot acknowledges his side’s 4-2 defeat at Aston Villa is frustrating for himself, the players and the fans as they now need to win against Brentford on the final day of the season to secure Champions League qualification.

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS: Aston Villa 4-2 Liverpool

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Less than a year on from the day Liverpool won the Premier League title, Arne Slot’s side find themselves in a position where their season rests on qualifying for the Champions League.

For Slot, perhaps his future does too. There will be no silverware and the Dutchman has already said failing to have Champions League football next season would mean this would “definitely not be an acceptable season”.

This was Liverpool’s 17th defeat of the campaign but it came after arguably one of their better performances. Until Ousmane Dembele’s 72nd-minute strike for Paris St-Germain, Liverpool battled admirably against the champions of Europe.

“It was an intense match between two teams who played really good football,” said PSG head coach Luis Enrique.

For Liverpool, there is no shame in getting knocked out by this PSG side. Luis Enrique’s side are a joy to watch and play with confidence when in possession.

But the worry for Liverpool is they have gone backwards.

When these two sides met in the Champions League last 16 last season, PSG were the better side across the two legs but they needed a penalty shootout to knock Liverpool out.

This time around, they outclassed Slot’s side in Paris and, while there were spells on Tuesday night when Liverpool threatened, the final scoreline of 4-0 across two legs was fair.

“Of course we are very disappointed because I think there were parts of the second half where you could feel ‘if we could just score now, this could become a very special night’,” said Slot.

“But the future looks very bright for this team, for this club. We have showed we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium. To be the dominant team, not many teams can be dominant against PSG and create as many chances as we did,” he added.

At Anfield, Liverpool’s xG was 1.94 compared with the 0.18 at the Parc des Princes last week.

So there were positives to take, but there is still plenty to be done before they can be considered serious contenders on the European stage again.

After the match, Mohamed Salah waved goodbye to the Anfield crowd after playing his last game for Liverpool in the Champions League.

Now the question is whether Slot and Liverpool will be back in the Champions League next season.