Jurgen Klopp has firmly dismissed suggestions Mohamed Salah is unhappy and says he would personally drive any wantaway player to their new club if they asked to leave Liverpool over a lack of Champions League football. Salah posted on Instagram on Thursday evening saying he was “totally devastated” by failure to secure a top-four spot after Manchester United wrapped up qualification with a 4-1 win over Chelsea and the Egyptian offered his apologies for the team’s efforts during a difficult year that will see them finish in fifth, their lowest end to a Premier League campaign since he joined in 2017.
Mohamed Salah said: “I’m totally devastated. There’s absolutely no excuse for this. We had everything we needed to make it to next year’s Champions League and we failed. We are Liverpool and qualifying to the competition is the bare minimum. I am sorry but it’s too soon for an uplifting or optimistic post. We let you and ourselves down.”
Klopp believes the content of Salah’s message and his repeated use of the word ‘we’ is indicative of a player who feels just as responsible for Liverpool’s poor term as the rest of the squad and the Reds boss rejected the idea it was the beginning of a calculated campaign to leave the club after six decorated years. And Klopp, whose side finish their term at Southampton on Sunday, said he would personally send any disgruntled member of his squad away from the club ahead of what is expected to be a major summer at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp said: “I only heard what he said. I couldn’t read or see anything that would lead in that direction. It is how I said Mo loves being here and Mo was part of the apologies for what we did not apologise for what the other guys did. No, it is all fine. If ever a player comes to me and says: ‘We didn’t qualify for the Champions League now I have to leave’, then I would drive him to another club. Like I say, I would take the key [ask him], ‘where do you want to go? I will drive you’. Because that would be something I would never understand. I would never say: ‘I need to work in the Champions League so now I go.’ I am responsible for this mess or whatever, so I cannot leave in these moments. It is not the case, not at all and nobody else asks me. They ask me if they can have an extra day off after their holidays or whatever when they have to come back, so that was not in our conversations.”
Klopp also offered an update on Stefan Bajcetic’s progress, saying he remains hopeful the teenager can be ready for the start of the pre-season schedule at a Germany-based training camp in mid-July. Bajcetic saw his season ended in mid-March after an injury was detected following the 1-0 loss at Bournemouth and Klopp offered a detailed prognosis for the 18-year-old.
Jurgen Klopp added: “Yes there is progress, but yesterday talking to the doctor, it will be around the start of pre-season and there will be times of integration but that will take time, so he is not in full training at that moment. He is completely pain free but we are talking about a very young player and body so we have to be careful. It’s a different injury, obviously but it is like we had to be super careful with Curtis (Jones), it is really annoying for the player because he can train for two days and then need two days off and you feel great but you don’t want to take any sort of risk. That might be the plan for him. When that exactly starts I don’t know, I hope that he can come with us to a training camp where he can do these bits and then progress and then be fine for the start of the season. But it is how it is with these kind of injuries, there is no real time behind him to say after six weeks that the ligament is healed and then he can go. We have to wait always for the next assessments and go from there but it is positive. At the end of the pre-season I think he will go to full training and beofre that parts of training, so that should be fine.”
