Liverpool’s messaging around Mo Salah’s future amid interest from Saudi Arabia has been pretty consistent: the player isn’t being sold this summer.
Fabrizio Romano confirmed that the Merseysiders have yet to budge from that position, even amid reports that a whopping £200m bid is being prepared in one final desperate attempt at landing the Egyptian before the Saudi Pro League window closes on 7th September.
“Liverpool are very. very relaxed about that situation,“ the Italian spoke on Monday’s Debrief Podcast (via CaughtOffside).
“I think Saudi will come back because this is something normal for them. Come back in terms of approaching Liverpool, approaching the player’s camp but I think it’s not going to be something concrete or something advanced in any case because Liverpool, honestly, have always been clear.
“Whenever we had all these rumours […] Liverpool have always sent the same message: The player is untouchable. Mo Salah is going nowhere.
“I think selling Salah now would be completely crazy for Liverpool. They are now finding the right ideas on the pitch with the new players, with their new midfield that they built in the summer so to lose a player like Mo Salah would be a shock for the squad so for the moment Liverpool are confirming they have no intention to let Mo Salah go.”
The former Roma attacker, for his part, appears utterly unfazed by the speculation surrounding him; certainly his efforts so far this season have only painted the picture of a man committed to the cause at Anfield.
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10 points secured from a possible 12, with Salah having played a vital part in every fixture, registering either a goal or an assist in the first four league fixtures of the season clearly indicates that the 31-year-old’s powers are showing no sign of waning.
Where that leaves us in a year’s time, of course, is hard to say, as Liverpool will have to do some serious thinking over the prospect of offering another contract extension to a then 32-year-old – albeit not just any 32-year-old.
Perhaps the even bigger question beyond that, should we choose to bite the golden bullet and cash in our Egyptian King for in the region of one might reasonably speculate to be £100-200m in the summer of 2024, is: who should we replace him with?
The pool of available options will already be quite slim given the calibre of the man we could be offloading next year; even more so once we factor in ideal attributes like pace, left-footed and output.
Not a decision we’d envy making!
#Ep89 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️