Mohamed Salah feels devastated as Liverpool miss out on Champions League for first time in seven years

Liverpool’s hopes for next season’s UEFA Champions League spot shattered on Thursday, May 25 as Manchester United thrashed Chelsea 4-1 in the English Premier League 2022/23 match at Old Trafford. Red Devils needed only a point to secure the fourth position in the EPL points table and to eliminate Liverpool from the race for next season’s Champions League spot.

Next season will be the first time in seven years without a Champions League football at Anfield and also the first since Salah’s arrival at the club. Liverpool remain the most successful English team in Champions League football with record six titles. So, missing out on Europe’s premier tournament has affected not only fans but star Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian footballer let out his frustration in a post on Twitter and apologized to Liverpool fans for letting them down this season.

“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,” Mohamed Salah wrote in his Tweet on Friday, May 26. 

Liverpool managed Jurgen Klopp responded to Salah’s Tweet by saying that it’s completely normal to react this way. The German head coach said that Salah was right about his feeling but it should not define the Reds’ season as they finished high as possible. 

“I am optimistic but in that moment I couldn’t see it. It’s completely normal in the world of social media, so many bad things happen constantly but I don’t think Mo’s message was one of them. He was right, but in an hour later in the canteen, he was smiling. It was clear very early on that this would not be a historically good season, we made mistakes, we weren’t consistent enough. But in the last 10 games, the amount of points we collected since then was pretty good. If we did that all season, we would be different,” Klopp said in reaction to Salah’s Tweet during the press conference on Friday.

Despite Liverpool’s abysmal season, Salah enjoyed another sensational campaign with 19 goals and 11 assists in 37 league matches. He also recorded eight goals in eight Champions League matches this season, only Manchester City’s Erling Haaland has recorded more this season. But Salah’s eight goals were not enough as the Reds were knocked out by Real Madrid in the round of 16.

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