Mohamed Salah limped out of Liverpool’s Premier League win against Crystal Palace after suffering a hamstring injury and applauded all four sides of the ground before heading straight down the tunnel.
The incident came after Salah went down following a challenge from Brennan Johnson and referees initially awarded a penalty, only for Andy Madley to overturn that decision after a pitch-side review; Liverpool responded by scoring two goals in the space of five minutes and secured their third consecutive Premier League win to move fourth.
Manager Arne Slot was blunt afterwards about the immediate outlook for the club’s star forward. "We don’t know," he said on Salah’s injury, adding: "But we do know the season is over in four or five weeks so that’s not a lot of games." Slot also said: "We have to see if he can return to play but Mo has taken such good care of his body that he needs the minimum time to recover from an injury. Let’s hope for the best."
The quick turnaround after the overturned penalty proved decisive. Liverpool struck twice in five minutes, one of those finishes delivering Alexander Isak his first league goal for Liverpool at Anfield, and the win nudged the club back into the Champions League places at a late stage of the campaign.
The timing sharpens the stakes. The injury hits at a stage when there are only four or five weeks left in the season, a period already being discussed by the club and supporters as potentially the final stretch of Salah’s time at Anfield; any absence now would compress the minutes available to a player whose fitness and conditioning Slot praised.
There are finer points that complicate the simple headline of "injury and uncertainty." The penalty sequence underlined it: officials initially awarded the spot-kick after Salah went down, but the decision was reversed after a pitch-side review, a moment that led quickly to Liverpool taking control of the match. That twist means the team did not just survive a contentious call — they turned the moment into two goals in the space of five minutes and a statement win while losing their leading attacking option to injury.
The result also came amid fan unrest over ticket-price changes for the next three seasons, a backdrop to the final weeks that will matter if Salah is sidelined and Liverpool must rely on squad depth to finish the campaign. For managers and supporters both, the immediate problem is practical: fitting a recovery timetable around the season’s last fixtures and the club’s ambitions.
What happens next is concrete and short: Liverpool must assess the hamstring injury, then prepare for a finish to the season that could unfold without their top scorer for some matches. The club will know more only when scans and specialist assessments are completed, but Slot’s blunt timetable — four or five weeks — frames the consequence plainly; if Salah is out, Liverpool will have to replace his goals and presence in a run-in that has already become a decisive stretch.
For fantasy managers and fans tracking minutes and transfers, our coverage of the weekend’s knock-on effects includes a related piece on the FPL implications of the game and other late-season moves, available here: Fpl dilemma as Mohamed Salah limps off and Morgan Gibbs-White lights up Forest.
