Tony Evans on Mo Salah’s Changing Role at Liverpool

Mo Salah’s evolving role, his newfound leadership, and why the Egyptian king remains the standard-bearer at Anfield

Salah’s Private Nature and Carefully Controlled Image

You sense there’s been a change in Mo Salah. For most of his eight years at Liverpool, he’s been a little distant, as if he’s above all the nonsense that’s associated with football.

The Egyptian king has always been very private. When you contact the club about a potential interview, the first thing you’re told is, “Not Salah, he doesn’t do stuff like this.” He’s always given the impression that he has his image on a very tight rein. For the most part, only what happens on the pitch has been shared with the fans. The rest belongs to Salah and is off limits.

“He has a great sense of his own status,” is how it was once explained to me. I could see how you could come to that conclusion but I always wondered whether that was approaching things from the wrong perspective. Did Salah understand his status? Had he grasped the power that a goalscorer and superstar wields? Perhaps he did and just didn’t care about it.

It wasn’t surprising when Arne Slot named Andy Robertson as vice-captain to Virgil van Dijk. The Scot and the Dutchman have obvious leadership qualities. Salah? He looked like a man who just wanted to get on with his own game.