Arne Slot has said Mohamed Salah’s involvement against Brighton on Saturday rests on the outcome of a conversation the pair will have on Friday morning and insisted he has no reason for wanting the Liverpool striker to leave.

Salah was left out of Liverpool’s Champions League win at Inter on Tuesday after the Liverpool hierarchy, and Slot, decided a short period out of the team was necessary after his highly critical interview at Leeds. The Egypt international claimed he would say goodbye to Anfield on Saturday before heading off on Africa Cup of Nations duty on Monday.

“I will have a conversation with Mo this morning and the outcome of that conversation determines how it will look tomorrow,” said Slot. “What I need is a conversation with him and the next time I speak about Mo should be with him and not in here. You can keep on trying but there’s not much more to say other than I will speak to him today and the outcome of that conversation determines how things will look tomorrow.”

The Liverpool head coach was reluctant to discuss the Salah situation in detail but claimed there were talks with the player’s agent, Ramy Abbas Issa, before the striker was named as a substitute for the third game in succession at Leeds last Saturday.

“We have spoken a lot in the last week,” he said. “After the Sunderland game there were a lot of conversations between his representatives and ours, our representatives and him, between him and me, and today I will speak to him again.”

Asked whether he needed an apology from Salah before considering him for selection again, Slot replied: “Same answer again.”

Although it was a club decision to omit Salah from the Milan trip, Slot insisted the final decision on team selection was down to him. He said: “I think we decided as a club – and I was part of that decision – not to take him to Inter Milan. I am always in contact with them but when it comes to the decision-making of the lineup or the squad they always leave it open to me but that is not to say I don’t talk to them, mainly Richard [Hughes, Liverpool’s sporting director] not Michael [Edwards, chief executive of football at Fenway Sports Group]. But I talk to him about so many things. The decision to play a player or have him in the squad – as I have experienced until now and I think this will never change – is entirely up to me.”

Despite Salah’s comments and the furore of the past week Slot offered an olive branch to the 33-year-old over his Liverpool future. “I have no reasons not wanting him to stay,” he said. “If that is a little bit of an answer.”