Liverpool have already had one bombshell announcement in 2024. Briefly, there seemed another. Jurgen Klopp picked a quiet Friday morning, the day before an FA Cup tie against Norwich, to announce a departure none had envisaged. Mohamed Salah waited for a 3-0 demolition of Manchester United, a game when he made two goals before scoring one himself, to declare: “It’s my last year in the club”.
But Salah had not picked Old Trafford to deliver explosive notice of his exit. He meant the last year of his contract. They could be one and the same, though. “Nobody in the club has talked to me about contracts,” said Salah. But they have talked to a right winger about one; just not him, but Federico Chiesa, who has signed on for four years. One possibility is that Liverpool have a successor already in the building.
A theory, though, is that Salah is the best right winger in their history, or the Premier League’s; even as Erling Haaland has usurped him as the outstanding goalscorer in the division now, Salah spent the first half of last season as arguably the finest all-round attacker. He seems to have assumed that status again now: a trio of games have brought three goals and three assists. Salah set up Luis Diaz for a brace, scored with expert precision and tormented Diogo Dalot, making him look a makeshift left-back.
And then came a timely reminder that he lingers in limbo. Salah is cute enough to pick his moment. United will hope there will be few more. “I was coming to the game it could be the last time [playing at Old Trafford],” he said. United must hope so: he has scored 14 times in his last 10 appearances against them. Perhaps more pertinently, after a mere three goals in his last 11 matches for Klopp, he has three in three for Arne Slot.
“He is one of ours and I am really happy with him being one of ours,” said the Dutchman. “I don’t talk about contracts.” The concern is that director of football Richard Hughes and Fenway Sports Group’s CEO of football, Michael Edwards, who are supposed to, don’t seem to talk about contracts, either: they have not held discussions with Virgil van Dijk nor, seemingly, Trent Alexander-Arnold.
All of which can feel odd. It threatens to mean Slot’s sophomore season becomes a transitional year after he is stripped of arguably his three most influential players, in some cases needlessly. Having rejected a £150m bid from Saudi Arabia for Salah, they could lose him for nothing. And if Klopp’s Liverpool were never worried Salah would leave last year, it is in part because he showed little interest in taking the millions on offer.
Now the equation is altered. “It is not up to me,” said Salah. Yet he is happy, though not necessarily demob happy. “I want to enjoy it,” he said of what could prove his final campaign at Anfield. It has started superbly but August excellence may be predictable: he tends to be a swift starter to seasons. He has scored on each of his last seven trips to Old Trafford so, in a sense, this was normal.
The greater surprise may be the lack of action off the pitch. It follows the Schmadtke interregnum, when Jorg Schmadtke was interim sporting director, putting everything on pause. Now Liverpool have more scope to plan for the long term but before bringing in Chiesa – and Giorgi Mamardashvili, potentially Alisson’s long-term replacement – Hughes was neither signing nor re-signing players.
In Salah’s case, and Van Dijk’s, it may reflect a policy of Liverpool’s owners. It might have been explained in part by United, forever Liverpool’s antithesis. If Salah, with Diaz, was the best player on the pitch at Old Trafford, the worst was Casemiro, given a four-year deal in his thirties. He has declined fast: Fenway Sports Group like to predict the future and prevent such costly mistakes.
They have a reluctance to give the thirty-somethings long and lucrative deals. It led to Gini Wijnaldum’s departure, with FSG probably feeling vindicated as his fortunes deteriorated elsewhere. They probably regretted the four-year deal given to Jordan Henderson, even if his move to Al-Ettifaq meant they never had to honour it. They did not extend the contracts of Roberto Firmino and James Milner when Klopp wanted to keep two of his favourites.
Now Salah and Van Dijk are the oldest of the old guard, the forward paid more than anyone else ever at Anfield. But the Egyptian, formidably fit, still fast, is proving an exception to many a rule. He has outlasted his sidekicks Firmino and Sadio Mane at Anfield, but also as an elite forward. The Brazilian and the Senegalese were outstanding players for Liverpool but they scored 231 goals for the club between them: Salah, with 214 on his own, should top that early in 2025.
Perhaps Liverpool are still waiting, to see if Salah will tail off the nearer he gets to his 33rd birthday. In the meantime, they are watching him: creating, scoring, starring. The longer they delay, however, the closer he gets to a departure and the more inexplicable an impasse appears.