It is a huge surprise Liverpool find themselves atop the English Premier League standings with a four point advantage with a game in hand.
Under the circumstance of seeing a two way battle for the league title play out between Manchester City and Arsenal the past two seasons even with the great Jurgen Klopp in charge of The Reds, Liverpool were always on the outside looking into the conversation of title contenders.
Bringing in a new manager head coach at a time Liverpool headed into the season with major questions over the future of Ryan Gravenberch’s ability to play in the pivot role after struggling to do so under Klopp, was also a source of worry with Arne Slot in charge.
Worsening matters was Liverpool’s failure to sign Martin Zubimendi- a direct fit for Gravenberch’s sole pivot role- from Real Sociedad before the season even after the Spanish international reportedly took photos in a Liverpool jersey.
Beyond these challenges, the biggest question that hung over Liverpool was the future of three key players in The Reds setup.
Virgil Van Dijk, Mohammed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold have played vital roles in Liverpool’s league leading performance thus far in the 2024-2025 campaign. While Alexander-Arnold and Van Dijk’s contract situations have been fairly low key though the likes of Alisson Becker have voiced their opinions for Liverpool to give Van Dijk a new deal, Salah’s situation has been anything but low key.
Unsurprisingly, Salah, who is the most popular Liverpool player largely because of the nature of football that glorifies goal scorers than every other role player, has had his contract year overtly played out. Salah aided in this public display of a contract dance off between the Egyptian and Liverpool’s top hierarchy by stating in a post-game presser that he had been offered nothing.
Photo Courtesy: PA Media
There was a mix of shock and anger directed at both parties since Jamie Carragher couldn’t believe a player of Salah’s ilk would put out such a sensitive topic while some Liverpool fans were angry the club had not made major progress on this issue.
Looking at Liverpool’s operations under the Fenway Sports Group-owners of the club- it shouldn’t come as a surprise they are having this dance with Salah considering the plan clearly all along was to move off the Egyptian and Van Dijk while transitioning to the next phase of the club.
The reasoning behind what many believe as a crazy decision is down to the background of Liverpool’s owners who are Americans and own multiple sports franchises in American sports leagues. Fenway has ownership stake in baseball club Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins, an ice hockey team, and the leagues they operate in have salary caps that shape the way contracts are handed out to athletes.
Beyond the financials, American sports league owners are keen on moving on players’ a year or two before they fall out of their prime years. The most successful European team, Real Madrid, have instituted this in the second coming of club President Florentino Perez who moved off players like Raphael Varane and Casemiro who were good players for a season or two before becoming virtual liabilities to Manchester United.
This looked to be true last season with Salah’s numbers and overall performance taking a dip and largely influencing Liverpool’s decision to run Salah’s contract down. For Liverpool, this move was successfully implemented to move Firmino, Fabinho, Sadio Mane, Joel Matip and Gigi Wijnaldum while bedding in the likes of Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboslai and Wataru Endo.
With Jarrell Quansah set as the future at centre back with Ibrahima Konate, Van Dijk’s new contract-which is certain to be expensive- is bound to be problematic compared to competitive deals for Konate and Quansah aside Van Dijk being 33 years old.
Alexander-Arnold’s situation is quite unique and akin to what Man United experienced with Cristiano Ronaldo who was hell bent on moving to Real Madrid to fulfill a lifelong dream and not necessarily because of financial misgivings with his contract.
There is mutual interest too to factor in the Englishman’s situation since Real Madrid needs a younger option over the very old guard of Dani Carvajal and Lucas Vasquez at the right full back position.
Back to Salah and there are reports that Liverpool and the Egyptian maestro are settling on a two year deal that would reward Salah financially well on a short term deal to avoid putting Liverpool in a position where a drop-off in production in the near future from Salah doesn’t affect Liverpool’s ability to move on from him.
With this development, it is plausible to believe that The Reds may have second thoughts running down Salah’s contract largely due to the slower than expected progress of his replacements Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota’s continued battles with injuries.
Nunez, Gakpo and Fabio Carvalho were tabbed to replace Salah, Mane and Firmino but none has panned out as expected with Carvalho getting sold to Brentford but flopping so badly that his new club want to let him go. Gakpo and Nunez are yet to score 20 goals respectively in a season in all competitions too since moving to Anfield and this profligacy might have caused the club’s handlers to reassess its approach about the Salah situation.
Conversely, Liverpool’s brilliant start to life under Slot might have just spurred them on to do practically the unthinkable and let Salah leave at the end of the season.
Klopp’s final days at Anfield were chaotic from an administrative standpoint as he clashed with personalities in Liverpool’s top hierarchy and eventually fell out with them leading to his shock decision to leave the club after nine seasons.
Replacing a charismatic and successful figure like Klopp with Slot-a less fancied candidate- who wasn’t even Liverpool’s first choice for the job (Man United’s Ruben Amorim was) was a big call.
However, that risky and bold call has paid dividends thus far as Liverpool have played with composure, efficiency and delivered in a big way en-route to becoming heavy favourites to win the EPL title. On the minor side, Liverpool also bet big on Gravenberch’s ability to come good by not signing Zubimendi and that too has paid off in a big way.
So as crazy as it sounds, Liverpool may just end up letting the great Mohammed Salah leave as a free agent after all because that is The Reds Way.
