The transfer market at the top of the European club game has taken on a curious form in recent years as options constrict for the very best (and those paid like them). Still, this Mohamed Salah impasse is like nothing we’ve ever known before. The probable the best player in the world, the probable Ballon d’Or winner, a player in the midst of a prime Lionel Messi level season seems to be pitching his club on the benefits of extending his contract.
Ever since the Bosman ruling in 1995, it has been a given that top footballers hold all the power when their contract is running down, all the more so in the final six months when, in Salah’s case, he can sign a pre-contract agreement with any club outside England. In 18 Premier League games this season, the 32 year old has a league-leading 17 goals and a league-leading 13 assists. Liverpool’s owners should be loading up a flotilla of Brink’s trucks just to start the conversation.
And yet for what is at least the third time this season, Salah finds himself publicly indicating that he would like to stay at Liverpool but the right offer is not on the table. Speaking to Sky Sports, he said that he had placed the Premier League title at the top of his list of targets for what he called “my last year in the club”.
Asked to address that comment further, he added: “So far yes. The last six months there is no progress there. We are far away from any progress. We just need to wait and see.”
File that alongside comments after Sunday’s demolition of West Ham that he was “far away” from reaching an agreement or the explosive remarks in November that he was “more out than in”. To hear Salah speak of the situation, it seems that Liverpool are perfectly prepared to wave farewell to the man who is carrying them to the Premier League title at a canter.
Liverpool should feel overwhelmed by pressure, fearing who might take Salah off their hands if they don’t get him signed up right away. Except, well, they aren’t. Arne Slot, the public face of negotiations, seems utterly at ease. Liverpool are understood to have made an offer last month but there seems to be no rush to finalise an agreement.
No wonder. What is the market for Salah, who is said to see his future at the top of the European game rather than Saudi Arabia? England’s top clubs surely know how unpalatable the Egyptian would find it to play against the club where he is a legend. Madrid’s strikeforce is set. Barcelona can’t even register Dani Olmo. Liverpool can feel pretty confident that the elite level market for their best player is likely them and maybe Paris Saint-Germain. They don’t need to blink.
Not only that, it might actively hinder their financial position to do so first. Bump Salah up from his £350,000-a-week salary and a new anchoring point is set for Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, both of whom are in the same contractual position.
Doubtless there is a price in terms of wages and years at which Liverpool would be more than willing to gamble that Salah’s descent down the age curve will be shallow. For now, however, it is they that can set that point. All the best player on the planet can do is make more headlines.
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