"I don't think he attacked anyone." That's Florian Wirtz's verdict on Mohamed Salah's now-viral post calling for Liverpool to return to Jürgen Klopp's "heavy metal" football — a post that a significant chunk of the first team publicly liked on Instagram, and one that Arne Slot conspicuously refused to comment on.
The context: a 4-2 home defeat to Aston Villa last Friday that left Liverpool's season in tatters. Salah's response was a multi-platform statement that didn't name Slot once but didn't need to. "I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear," he wrote. "Everyone that joins this club should adapt to it." For a manager who built his entire project around instilling a calmer, more structured style, it landed like a grenade.
Wirtz tries to defuse it
The German playmaker had a straightforward explanation for all the likes. "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." He's not wrong that Salah — weeks from the exit door — had nothing left to lose. Whether his teammates should have amplified it quite so publicly is a different question.
Wirtz also pushed back on the broader narrative. "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." It's the kind of thing players always say. It's also sometimes true.
What gives it more credibility here is what's happening off the pitch. Liverpool are set to appoint Etiënne Reijnen — Slot's trusted set-piece coach from Feyenoord — ahead of next season. Slot wanted him from day one but was blocked by visa complications. That appointment is now going through, and it sends a clear message from the club's hierarchy: Slot isn't going anywhere.
The set-piece problem Reijnen is being hired to fix
The timing is pointed, because Liverpool's set-piece record this season has been genuinely alarming. They've conceded 20 goals from dead balls in the Premier League — the worst in the division. Defensively, that's not just a bad run of form; it's a structural failure that has compounded every other problem this season.
Reijnen's track record at Feyenoord makes the hire look smart. Across three seasons in Rotterdam, his side conceded just 17 set-piece goals — the best record in the Eredivisie — while only PSV scored more from such situations. Those are the kinds of numbers that move the needle on a team's defensive solidity, and on Liverpool's odds of competing for the title next season.
The broader picture isn't quite as grim as this campaign suggests. Slot won the Premier League in his first season. Liverpool have a strong squad, mitigating circumstances — including the tragic loss of Diogo Jota in the summer — and a manager the club clearly still believes in. One disastrous season doesn't erase any of that.
But they still need to qualify for the Champions League on Sunday against Brentford. Everything else — the Salah fallout, the Reijnen appointment, the reset — starts there.
