If Salah thinks he’s answering the first, then I’m fascinated to know what he thinks the endgame here looks like.

The answer to that isn’t “make an out of form Salah undroppable” anymore than it is “sack the manager”. A star player should know that and should be astute enough to think, “are my actions going to help us, or are they going to make things worse?”

It’s so rare a team wins the league and then doesn’t have a drop off the season afterwards. It’s happened to us before. And yes, it’s shite watching us give away soft goals and chuck away leads and generally play in a laboured and pedestrian way. But it happens and there are good reasons for it

It’s about establishing new structures and systems, building around new core players as Salah and (whisper it) Van Dijk fade into their late careers, and we deal with losing particularly Trent and Luis Diaz - two players who were crucial to how we operated last season

This season has “transitional season” written through the middle of it like a stick of rock. I don’t know what people think the value of sacking the manager and installing a new regime is going to bring at that point. It’s not just about getting a tune out of some talent assets.

I don’t think that’s what he wants. If he’d have wanted to go to Saudi, I think he would have gone last summer. But maybe he was hoping for one my premier league pay day before heading off. For what it’s worth, I think now is the time to sell him because he’s clearly not the future of the club

You just have to look on here and other socials to see what that’s done. Further polarising the fanbase so people kick lumps off each other. Entrench them in their existing positions that we should either sack Slot or stick with him. He’s now added “sell Salah in January” to that mix I suppose

Football is always a team sport. You can argue about whether Slot has singled out Salah specifically at the expense of others (I don’t think he has but other opinions are available). What Salah has done is single himself out, made himself the centre of attention.

Yes, he’s not the only one who’s not playing well. The team are clearly in a period of transition and dealing with a horrendous situation with Jota’s deeply traumatic death. If you want to assign blame, there’s plenty to go around. But compare these comments with those from Curtis Jones previously

He hasn’t been good this season. He should recognise that and acknowledge how that affects the team. He’s a short period away from heading off to AFCON, leaving the rest of the team to try to sort out the mess they are in without him. His comments don’t help his team mates with that challenge.

Are we sure this is Shaun Ryder and not simply the output when you give AI the prompt: photorealistic jovial Baron Harkonnen