Mo Salah is back at Liverpool after the injury he suffered while playing for Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations last week, and one of his fellow countrymen has duly fired a snide and sarcastic dig at him online.
Cast your mind back to the 2000s and you might recall a striker in the Premier League named Mido. He played with Tottenham, Middlesbrough, Wigan and West Ham, scoring 22 goals in 94 games in the division (Transfermarkt).
He was something of an enigma, turning it on whenever he felt like it but also infuriating some of his managers with his outspoken nature and even going AWOL for a period.
He’s now gone from not showing up when he was supposed to, to sticking his oar in where nobody had asked, taking to social media to take a cheap shot at Salah over returning to Liverpool to begin rehabilitation on the injury rather than staying with the Egypt squad.
Mido posted a screenshot on X of the Reds superstar in training on Merseyside, adding the caption (translated from Arabic) ‘Oh, these exercises are so dirty and rigid, it is difficult to do them except in Liverpool’ and a crying with laughter emoji.
ياااه التدريبات دي بنت وسخه جامده اوي صعب تتعمل إلا في #ليفربول 😂 pic.twitter.com/ywkGD53Tno
— Mido (@midoahm) January 25, 2024
READ MORE: Liverpool and Chelsea fans could see Carabao Cup final plans altered after police request
Here we have a former player whose Premier League goal tally was far from breathtaking and who landed himself in hot water with some of his behaviour during his time in England, throwing shade at someone who’s been a consummate professional throughout his career.
Salah scored 32 league goals in his first season at Liverpool, 10 more than Mido accumulated in five years in the same division, so it doesn’t take forensic calculation to work out who’s been the more productive of the two.
The 40-year-old’s snide tweet is exactly what Mo’s agent Ramy Abbas railed against in his own social media post earlier on Thursday, letting rip at online ‘influencers’ who he accused of trying to stir up controversy purely for social media engagement.
Maybe the former Spurs striker should’ve been a bit more professional in his playing days, instead of taking cheap shots at one of the finest footballers of this generation.