Only Mohamed Salah knew what he really meant by that cryptic social media post on Saturday, when he shared a video of himself enjoying a quiet night in with Ibrahima Konate, Dominik Szoboszlai and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
On the face of it, meeting up with team-mates and work colleagues is hardly newsworthy, but Salah’s use of social media – and the media at large – has felt premeditated this season.
As he and the club continue to look for a contract solution to his expiring deal at Anfield, Salah has repeatedly claimed in interviews this is his last season at Liverpool, conveniently leaving out the words “as things stand”. His decision to stop in the mixed zone at Southampton in November was certainly not innocuous or coincidence.
“I’m probably more out than in,” he said at St Mary’s, comments which infuriated Jamie Carragher. “In the end it is not in my hands,” he added. “As I said before, it is December and I haven’t received anything yet about my future.”
Salah certainly isn’t afraid to increase the spotlight on these sorts of topics. “I’m starting to think you’re obsessed with me,” he responded to Carragher on X in January, following TV analysis from the ex-defender. That came on the back of Salah’s Instagram post showing him, Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk in the 2-2 draw against Manchester United.
Again, uploading an image of those three players felt pointed. As did Saturday’s Instagram video, which effectively seemed to say “look who I’m with”, at the end of the week which had been dominated by speculation on Alexander-Arnold’s future.
That the camera started on Konate and Szoboszlai and panned sharply to the Liverpool right-back, who was in mid-speech, was not by accident. There was no audio either, leaving everyone to guess as to the subject of the conversation, with Konate and Szoboszlai appearing to be captivated by whatever Alexander-Arnold was discussing.
Salah’s use of social media is not restricted to just drumming up speculation. He shares a photo with the goalscorers from every match he nets in, highlights his own successes via his platforms, shares snippets of his personal life and uses it to promote his own commercial deals. It’s a shrewd and relatively easy way for the Egyptian to increase his profile, and in many ways, he embodies the modern player. The Liverpool star is part of the first wave of professionals whose career began after the social media’s huge expansion in the 2010s.
He has uploaded 25 Instagram posts this calendar year alone, that’s before considering the updates to his story, which disappear after 24 hours. Since that Alexander-Arnold teaser on Saturday night, Salah has since posted images of himself working in the gym and in the sauna, perhaps a reminder to everyone of his physical shape and why Liverpool must tie him down to a new deal.
Whatever the meaning behind his posts – positive, negative or completely irrelevant – that Alexander-Arnold’s future seems decided will only increase the noise surrounding Salah’s situation in the coming weeks, as we tick closer to the end of the season and the expiration of his contract.
He might not mind that and, while Salah’s future looks uncertain, one thing can be guaranteed: Expect plenty of social media posts before a conclusion to this saga is reached.
