There is a mysterious, unnamed entity involved in the Mohamed Salah saga. A saga that is threatening to turn into the most uncivil of civil wars at Liverpool.“Someone doesn’t want me at the club,” Salah said as part of the post-match comments that turned an already turbulent moment at the club into a full-on storm.“It seems like the club is throwing me under the bus, that’s how I feel. I think it’s very clear that someone wants me to get all the blame.”Salah refers a couple of times to “someone.” Whether he himself knows who this is, we don’t know, but given the sporting structure and hierarchy at Liverpool, there are more people it could be, more people making decisions at the club that affect players than just Arne Slot.The mysterious entity in this scenario could be the sporting direction team, consisting currently of Richard Hughes at club level and above him at FSG level, Michael Edwards, who must take some of the blame for the way this has panned out.They’re mysterious because we don’t hear much from these figures, despite their seniority and the impact their decisions have on the club.We don’t know their plans for long-term progression and evolution of the club post-Jurgen Klopp, neither with Salah in the team, nor for a future without Salah. A future that looks like it might come more quickly than might have originally been planned when he was given a two-year contract in April.The planning ahead prior to this season is partly responsible for the mess Liverpool have found themselves in on the pitch and off it.Around all such issues, there is always the caveat that Diogo Jota’s tragic death has affected the team greatly in more ways than we will know, and will affect individuals, including Salah, in different ways.The planner’s dream goes wrongAs Liverpool embarked on an unprecedented spending spree in the summer, it felt like they had left themselves with too much to do in one transfer window, which is the fault of long-term planning.They made it even more of an overhaul for themselves with the sale of Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Kostas Tsimikas, Caoimhin Kelleher, and Jarell Quansah, all of whom played more than 1000 minutes for the club in the previous season. This on top of the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold.Regardless of the view of these players pre- and post-sale, they all contributed to last season’s success, whether that came in the league itself or acting as an alternative to give players rest in other competitions.Even a player like Harvey Elliott played a part, with 28 appearances, providing relief for other players at the end of games.That’s eight players no longer at the club that needed replacing on top of the natural strengthening required on the back of a season where the club integrated no new players into the first team.Even after the signings of Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez, Hugo Ekitike, Alexander Isak, and Giovanni Leoni, it still felt like Liverpool were a defender short.The pursuit of Marc Guehi was an admission of this, though the club have been unlucky with the injury to the impressive-looking Leoni.The effect on Mo SalahThis overhaul changed the dynamic of the team, and a change in the system affected everyone, especially Salah.The loaning out of Elliott left Salah as the only left-footed attacker in the team, and there aren’t even any left-footed midfielders or central defenders to add such balance.The sale of Diaz left Cody Gakpo as the only inside left forward in the squad whom Slot trusts, and depleted the options through the middle.It was pretty obvious last season he didn’t fully trust Chiesa to come into these roles, and it’s even more obvious this season when the Italian seems like an obvious choice to come in, but still doesn’t.Some of this, you could even say much of it, is on Slot.He can be criticised for not even trying Chiesa in place of Gakpo or Salah, but the truth is it’s still far from ideal to have a player who made only one Premier League start last season, once the title was already won, as your only senior backup winger.One of Liverpool’s first problems is that they appear to have promised one of their new signings, Wirtz, a specific position in the team as a number 10 in a 4-2-3-1.This is unusual, and perhaps misguided, as it wasn’t even the kind of No. 10 role he played in Leverkusen. There, he was a left-sided 10 in a 3-4-2-1 in the Bundesliga, which is much different from being a central 10 in a 4-2-3-1 (an untested Liverpool 4-2-3-1 at that) in the Premier League.It changes the dynamic of the forward line and the midfield, and changes what you want from each player.This has a domino effect on the whole team, and has seen most of the roles from the 2024/25 title-winning season change somewhat, including what is expected of Salah.A player like Salah can’t be eased outThe issues with Salah, both his downturn in form and his subsequent reaction to being dropped on the back of that poor form, are partly sporting direction issues.Salah is not the kind of player for whom a succession plan can be eased into place with him still in the side.You don’t have to build the side around him, but it does make sense to accommodate a player who scored 29 goals and made 18 assists in the league last season, and has hit double figures for goals and assists in six of his eight seasons at the club, and lessen the disruption around him as much as possible.We won’t hear from the sporting directors on this, though. Maybe we should.Slot’s role is, after all, described by the club as ‘head coach’, not ‘manager’, so it’s not unreasonable for us, and maybe even for Slot himself, to expect some assistance and some comment and explanation from those working at that level from time to time.Salah’s comments were what kicked it off. Slot has been asked about it in every interview since, while numerous players have had to approach the issue during their pre- and post-match Champions League media duties this week.‘The club’, though, have been quiet on the matter, and while Slot and the players face up publicly each week, it might also be good to hear from someone above them now and again.