John Oliver's Message to Mo Salah & Reaction to Trent Alexander-Arnold's polarizing Liverpool exit

Trent Alexander-Arnold, the scouser in our team, the man who hit that duolingo harder than any scouser has ever hit it before, broke so many Anfield hearts, decamped for Madrid. It was fascinating watching his last weeks, John, this great, he is a great, he'd won everything with the club, he'd been there since he was six, but it was as if the Kop didn't know how to process why someone would want to leave for free to boot, because if Liverpool is a religion, Trent was rejecting the faith, and you almost had to excommunicate him, you had to be an apostate, an outcast. For a start, I think the fact he learned Spanish on the slide, that just felt like the final slap in the face. You know, when you see them get off the bus with their big headphones, and you're thinking, oh, what music are they listening to? You didn't think that Trent was there going, But the difficult thing is, with Liverpool as a city in particular, and that club, and its relation to the city, those ties are forged fiercer than can seem logical from the outside. So, I did not like to, seeing personally, the ugliness in terms of the reaction to Trent, I understand where it comes from, but I don't personally like it. It feels like, what more do you expect this kid to give to the team than what he gave? You've got a kid who was living at home when he played his first game for Liverpool, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, he's won literally everything, he's given everything, what more does he owe you? I think, for me, the answer is nothing. I think, for some people, the answer is, no, he owes us more than that. He owes us endless loyalty, and that had been broken somehow, that's a hard case to make. I found it very difficult to see some of the sourness getting projected at him. I know where it comes from, but I don't like it. I mean, it must have been hard and haunting. I found it difficult. I didn't, I truly understood it. I mean, it is. I'm not mocking when I think that, like, so many of the tenets of modern football are like those of religion in Eon's past, and particularly Anfield with the ritual. It's almost like the Amish have to shun those that leave. You have to, otherwise it all, you know, those that stay behind, it's absolutist, and so I understood both in that moment. I think I totally agree with that, especially as someone, I am not personally a religious person. I understand the comfort and the pull of the routine of religion. I understand the desire and the efficacy of being in a certain place at a certain time and communing, you know, having a communal experience. With the gods, with the gods. Exactly. Football can be that, it has been that, and it continues to be that for me, just to a certain extent, being at a certain time on the weekend, knowing that I'm going to gather together separately with friends of mine, texting during the game, knowing they're watching their team, I'm watching my team, we're all going through something. There is a communal sense to that which is important, and it makes the perceived or real betrayals even more painful, right, if you've invested something in, and especially for Trent, who lived the dreams of every other inhabitant of that city who was not him. It's hard, it's really hard. It is hard. You did the thing, you slept in your childhood bed and you played for Liverpool, it's the thing that all of us wanted. You slept in your childhood bed, you played for Liverpool, you won things. That's right, you won things, you won everything. What more could you want in life? I think that was part of what it was, it's almost like you've lived the entirety, you've conquered the entirety of the known world, what else, what else could there be? My answer to that would be, that would be a good excuse, like you've done all of it, you might want to see if there's something else that that might involve. Duolingo in your headphones. Buenas dias. Ultimately, I do, but I do, listening to you, football is a religion and I realise watching Everton on a weekly basis is like being forced into the confessional box and having to just repent, repent, repent for 90 minutes, and I do think I'm genuinely a better person for it. Which leads us to Mo Salah, who in just a few months has gone from announcing his contract extension by posing on a throne no less in the middle of the field, to being benched for three straight games due to his poor performances, then doing that incendiary mic drop interview where he talked about how the team had quote thrown him under the bus. And now we've got to analyse the look in his eyes as he waves to the Kop before leaving to Afghan, to even begin to John, I do want to caveat this by saying I know just how much Mo Salah means to you, how much you revere him, you know, watching him in the crosshairs now of like modern football, social media and pundit, kind of the rage inferno, even for me it's been painful. You wrote in Time magazine for the 100 most influential people list, I think it was 2019, you wrote about Mo is a better human being than he is a footballer. I agree, this man is the It's more complicated I think than it looks, I think he has definitely and I think rightly felt targeted by criticism and blamed for much more multifaceted problems. There is also a sense of the passage of time being cruel, he probably can't tackle back in the way that he might even want to, therefore that is something that you need to have a plan for. There is a difference between having Trent behind you passing you the ball and Joe Gomez. One speaks Spanish, the other doesn't. That's right. One sounds like he should. That is one of the reasons and one is orchestral in terms of his passing, one is more agricultural, shall we say. I just say as Trent, as you start running through and Trent passes you the ball, that ball is going to land at a different place than Joe Gomez and I am very grateful for Joe Gomez. I'm very grateful for any useful tool that can do a bunch of different things but it is different having Joe Gomez behind you than having Trent. That is just a fact and I think he's probably felt singled out for completely understandable reasons and that must have hurt for completely understandable reasons. It must have been hard not to feel insulted and personally targeted by being dropped even though as you're right he wasn't playing well but I think to suggest and it clearly he felt that way that he was being blamed for everything is just, that is, the problems run a lot deeper than just how Mo was playing. That's the current reality but we are in this moment where Mo is facing possibly living out that Batman truth that you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself being sold to the Saudi league in January and I don't know if we have seen the last of Mo. I know how that would feel for you. If you had the chance to address Mo and tell him how you feel in this moment, what he means to you, what would you say? I'm not going to prescribe anything to Mo. I would just say that all I've ever wanted was for Mo to be happy. That remains all that I want and I would rather he was happier at Liverpool than in Saudi and I think he'd be happier in Liverpool than in Saudi for the rest of the year and also you don't often get the best possible goodbye but you can avoid the worst. I think they've already avoided the worst by what happened in that game. Coming off the bench, playing pretty well, certainly enjoying. Like the idea that he had already played his last game for Liverpool, that was too much for me. That is not, I do think deserves more than that. So I guess what I'd say is Mo, please do what makes you happy as long as what makes you happy is staying in Liverpool. You don't ask for much. If not, do what makes you sad. You're saying Mo, don't be selfish. Think of John Oliver and his feelings is what you're saying. I'm just saying you don't solely have to think of me but I think with Mo there is a legacy question at that point of his career and as awful as it is to say where you're closer to the end than the beginning in the extreme. So then it is what do you want that legacy to be and I think his legacy is going to be as a footballer a Liverpool footballer. That is where he gave the best years of his career, where he performed incredibly, where he forged a really deep connection to that city and as we've talked about did some truly great things. He deserves that relationship to be intact regardless of how this goodbye goes, when it happens or how it goes. He is a and will forever be a legend at Liverpool. I just want the best possible goodbye and leaving to go to Saudi in the January transfer window while you're at AFCON is not it. That is no one's version of a goodbye. There's no he is looking at you kid and Casablanca there. Yeah but did Jordan Henderson sacrifice himself for nothing. Learn from the Jordan Henderson experience and do not do the Saudi to Brentford as your legacy is essentially what you're saying.