Salah feud, Nunez friction and Alexander-Arnold exit: how Slot lost the Liverpool dressing room

Arne Slot’s Liverpool tenure ended just over a week ago, with the club confirming his dismissal following a disappointing second season that contrasted sharply with the Premier League title he delivered in his first year at Anfield.

While poor results drove the decision, a deteriorating relationship with several senior players compounded the pressure on Slot. Three names in particular — Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Darwin Nunez — became emblematic of the friction inside the dressing room.

Mohamed Salah

The most public flashpoint of Slot’s reign was his fractured dynamic with Salah. The Egyptian forward caused widespread uproar after claiming he had been thrown “under the bus” following three consecutive omissions from the starting line-up in December 2025.

Dropped to the bench for an away fixture at Leeds, Salah alleged he had been made a scapegoat for Liverpool’s poor Premier League form, going as far as to say the pair had no relationship at all.

“I can’t believe I’m sitting on the bench for 90 minutes,” Salah said after the match. “The third time on the bench, I think for the first time in my career. I’m very, very disappointed. I have done so much for this club down the years and especially last season. Now I’m sitting on the bench and I don’t know why.”

“It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus. That is how I am feeling. I think it is very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame. I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager and all of a sudden, we don’t have any relationship.”

Salah’s discontent did not end there. Following Liverpool’s 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa in May, he publicly criticised the club’s direction via social media. “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,” he wrote. “That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that” — the post underscoring how far the club had drifted from the standards Salah expected.

Trent Alexander-Arnold and Darwin Nunez

Alexander-Arnold and Nunez also featured among the senior players whose relationships with Slot became strained during the second season, though the full details of those rifts were less publicly aired than the Salah saga.

New Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola inherits a dressing room that will require careful management. Rebuilding trust between the squad and a supporter base that grew accustomed to booing under Slot is understood to be among Iraola’s immediate priorities, alongside establishing a strong rapport with players who experienced a turbulent final chapter under his predecessor.