Liverpool journalist James Pearce has given his thoughts on Mohamed Salah at Liverpool following his performances this season.
The Egyptian’s future is something that has been a hot topic of conversation on Merseyside in recent months, made all the more urgent by the fact he’ll enter the final 18 months of his deal when the January transfer window rolls around.
Even though the club prioritised the extensions of number of key contracts this past summer, Salah didn’t receive one, although reports suggest that negotiations are now taking place. Plus, during an interview with Spanish outlet Marca back in March, he said that he would ‘maybe’ like to try playing in La Liga one day, which hinted at a possible move to Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid at some point before he retired, which may have sewn some doubt over his long-term future at Anfield.
And, Fabrizio Romano recently stated that the Reds are pushing to secure an agreement over his contract.
But speaking about the matter on The Red Agenda podcast (23:44), Pearce claimed that based on how Salah has been performing this season, that he doesn’t see any reason why Salah would want to leave and that given how he conducts himself, he can see him staying at the club long into his career:
“I just think there’s nothing about Salah in terms of his body language, or the way he’s playing which suggests anything else other than he is incredibly happy. And, I just think it’s a process that they’re obviously going through at the moment, we’ll all be happier when it’s finished.
“But, you look at the way that he leads his life, there’s a lot of talk about whether you should give long extensions to players who are approaching or just gone past their 30th birthdays, we had that discussion with Gini Wijnaldum didn’t we?
“But this is such a different situation. I mean, Salah for a start is in a whole different category to Wijnaldum, there’s no parallels there in terms of its importance to the team and what he’s doing. And I still think he’ll still be doing it 33,34, 35. So giving him another four years to me, it’s just an absolute no-brainer, there’s no risk.”
TIF Thoughts on James Pearce’s comments about Mohamed Salah and Liverpool
Is Salah currently the best player in the world?
Yes
No
You can certainly understand where Pearce is coming from in regards to the risk associated with offering someone a deal once they are past their 30th birthday, which at some clubs has dictated their overall policy, but Salah is performing at such a level right now that Liverpool can afford to take that risk with him.
Taking a look at his numbers from 2020/21, where he bagged 31 goals in all competitions, even if his production does dip as much as 50% over the next four years, then that still means that Liverpool would be getting 15 or so goals out of him, which would be an impressive feat given his age.
So whilst Liverpool signing him now would do a good job in waving off any chance of him leaving in 2023 or before that, perhaps more importantly is making sure that they have got someone of his incredible ability at their disposal for years to come.
In other news: ‘Now he’s scoring a lot of goals’ – Fabrizio Romano reveals Liverpool wanted €60m star