Jamie Carragher has offered a theory into what Jurgen Klopp and Mohamed Salah were arguing about on the touchline during Liverpool ’s draw against West Ham.
The Reds were held to a 2-2 draw at the London Stadium as they fell even further behind in the Premier League title race. Jarrod Bowen opened the scoring with a header but Liverpool fought back after the break, with Andy Robertson equalising before Cody Gakpo ’s scuffed shot somehow went in via three deflections off West Ham players.
The comeback was scuppered when Bowen picked out Michail Antonio and he headed past Alisson to secure a point for the Hammers. As that goal went in the TV cameras picked up a row between Klopp and Salah, who was waiting to come on alongside Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez, having been dropped from the starting XI for the second time in a week.
Nunez had to step in to usher Salah away from his manager as tempers ran high. When asked by TNT Sports about the row and if he could discuss what had been said, Klopp responded: “No. We spoke already in the dressing room, for me that’s done.”
But former Liverpool defender Carragher believes Salah might have been at fault. Quote-tweeting a clip of the incident, Carragher wrote: “The only reason a manager would be unhappy in this situation, is the player took too long to be ready to come on.”
Speaking on TNT Sports’ coverage, Peter Crouch said: “It didn’t look good. I can’t say exactly what they’re saying, it didn’t look good, I don’t think it looks good for the club. Listen, Mo Salah is a player who starts the majority of games for Liverpool, he’ll be fuming. He’ll be fuming to be on the bench. Players like that who are expected to start are never happy, but no-one likes to see this, between a manager and a real key player.”
Ally McCoist added: “Not good at all. Particularly when you see Mo Salah coming back for another bite and one of his team-mates has to intervene. It does not look good, that kind of stuff should be behind closed doors.”
Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock agreed on BBC Radio 5 Live, saying: “It is not good to see at all. You have two people who are equally important to the football club. The connection between the two has to be of respect and respect how they have helped each other’s careers. With Mo Salah being pushed out a little bit he doesn’t like that. It is a clash of egos.”
Salah could not make an impact, with his dangerous cross towards Nunez cut out by Vladimir Coufal and another going astray on the counter-attack. Harvey Elliott struck the crossbar, but Liverpool’s shooting was wayward, with their 28 shots only producing two goals, one of which was a flukey own-goal.
