Mohamed Salah has explained his surprise at the standard Arne Slot has brought to Liverpool, admitting he “didn’t expect” the new head coach to be so good.
In his previous seven seasons at Liverpool, Salah had worked under only one manager in Jurgen Klopp – but the summer brought a major change.
With Slot taking over for the final season of the Egyptian’s current deal, there were concerns from certain sections of the support that he could meet the levels required of an elite squad.
But the former Feyenoord head coach has already surpassed expectations, with Salah telling TNT Sports of his surprise at Slot’s impact.
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“Am I surprised? Yes. Before I worked with him, I didn’t expect that,” the No. 11 admitted.
“But once I started working with him I was like ‘OK, I’m not surprised anymore’, because I saw how he was into detail and how he focused on the small things.
“He doesn’t have an ego. Like ‘OK, I made a mistake, now I’ll try to sort it’.
“It’s happened many times, it happens sometimes during the games, sometimes at half-time, sometimes at the end of the game.
“He doesn’t have an ego, ‘things are not working well, OK I’ll change it’ and that’s it.
“That’s why he’s not surprising me anymore.”
Slot’s tactical insight has been widely praised by the Liverpool squad, with pre-season spent holding meetings with the squad and individual players as he looked to make his imprint early.
“He’s very good tactically,” Salah continued.
“He’s more into details, he tries to change stuff for each team, so hopefully we carry on like this!”
But Salah has also been pleasantly surprised with the 46-year-old’s authority, saying that he prefers to “tell you things to your face.”
“He likes confrontation! Which is good, somehow it’s good. Not always, but it’s good!” he laughed.
“He tells you things to your face straight away.
“I think it’s very important for the players to know what the manager wants and he really explains it really well.
“His explanations are black or white, so take it or leave it.”
Salah is already the third-top assist-maker of any player in Slot’s coaching career, with 17, behind only Calvin Stengs (29) and Oussama Idrissi (18) despite playing at least 56 fewer games.
The Egyptian is currently Slot’s joint-ninth highest goalscorer (20), but five more will place him second behind Santiago Gimenez (49) who has played 59 games more.
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