Why Liverpool Could Be Taking Their Time With Mohamed Salah’s New Contract Offer

Signing Mohamed Salah to a new deal should be a priority for Liverpool at the moment. The longer it takes to get the Egyptian forward to commit to the club, the more restless fans will grow.

Since his return to the Premier League, Salah has been one of the top players in England every season. He recently achieved a milestone wearing Liverpool’s uniform, having scored his 100th goal in the English top flight last month. He is the fastest player to reach the mark for the Reds, scoring his 100th in his 151st appearance, one game faster than Roger Hunt.

Salah is a target for several top European clubs and it was expected that, by now, the marksman would have been tied down to a new deal. As to what the holdup is, no one on the outside has any idea. Liverpool almost certainly will not be able to sign a like-for-like replacement for Salah if he leaves Anfield.

While he’s a wanted man, there aren’t that many options for him, which is the only real positive as far as the situation is concerned. Barcelona and Juventus aren’t exactly strapped for cash and wouldn’t be able to finance such a move under current circumstances. Real Madrid can afford to bring Salah to Spain but they’ve made Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland their primary targets. It’s unlikely that Salah would move to another Premier League team, with Newcastle United the new kids on the block in terms of money. 

The recent takeover will see the Toon battle with Europe’s elite in the transfer market and it appears no player will be too expensive for them. 

Paris Saint-German and Bayern Munich are probably not as attractive due to the ease of affairs in their respective leagues.

The Reds have likely taken the above into consideration and, by virtue, reckon there’s no reason to rush. It does seem very likely that Salah will become Liverpool’s highest-paid player at some point and will give the best of his remaining years to the Kop. His teammates certainly wouldn’t be against having him earn the highest wages as they’d probably have to face him in a different uniform otherwise.

With regards to money, there could be some disagreement over the player’s demands. Liverpool’s owners, the Fenway Sports Group, are known for being intransigent when it comes to their wage structures and, while an exception could be made for one of the greatest players in Liverpool history, there will be concern over possible future problems.

Last year, the Boston Red Sox allowed star Mookie Betts to leave instead of caving to his wage demands. The Red Sox is owned by the group that owns Liverpool.

“It was a very big deal,” Jen McCaffrey, a reporter for the Red Sox, told the David Ornstein Show recently.

“You had fans saying they weren’t going to follow the team anymore and that was the end of it – fans still bring up that deal and it is still pretty raw after a year and a half. People blame John Henry for not wanting to spend or not trying to secure a deal. But we are not 100 percent sure that he would have taken what was on the table and he ended up signing with the LA Dodgers for 12 years and $365m (£268m).

“Should the Red Sox have been able to afford that? Yes. But did they want to be paying a player like him well into his late 30s? It is one that we will be debating for a long time. The fans are still extremely frustrated by it and we have seen attendance at Fenway Park down this year – the pandemic has a lot to do with that, but the fans are pretty fed up.”

While the situation with Betts could be used as an example, it’s not quite the same as Salah’s. The Egyptian has made it clear that he would like to remain with Liverpool, which was not the case with the Red Sox and Betts. There’s no way of knowing the baseball star would have signed a new deal had the team offered him more money.

The risk is also different as Liverpool would be fine in terms of roster numbers. Sure, they wouldn’t be able to find another player as productive as Salah right away but there are attackers who could come in and keep the Reds competitive.

It would be difficult for the player to see his wage demands met elsewhere given the struggle clubs have had to face in light of the pandemic. There aren’t many teams that would be able to break the bank for him.

Salah will become a free agent in 2023 and is currently on a five-year deal that nets him £200,000 a week. Liverpool will have no choice but to either sign him to a bumper new deal at the end of next season or sell him as they’d lose him for nothing in 2023.