A former scout at Manchester United has said that Liverpool are becoming increasingly ‘desperate’ regarding one ongoing situation at Anfield.
As every Reds fan will know, the clock is ticking rapidly on the contracts of Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, each of whom is currently set to become a free agent at the end of the season.
With Saudi Pro League chief Michael Emenalo not ruling out a move for the Egyptian and Real Madrid continuing to take a strong interest in the England right-back, the prospect of losing multiple on-field leaders is looming ever larger.
Liverpool ‘desperate’ to keep crucial trio
Speaking to Football Insider, Mick Brown claimed that Liverpool are striving to keep all three of Salah, Van Dijk and Trent at the club, but their adherence to a rigid wage structure could enable other teams to lure the trio by offering more lucrative deals.
The ex-United scout said: “I’ve been told they’re desperate to keep Trent. The three players they’ve got in this position: Salah, Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold, they really want to keep all three of them, but there are a few reasons why they might not be able to.
“I don’t think Liverpool are the highest payers when it comes to players and clubs at that level. These star players could earn more money if they made a move to Saudi Arabia, or in Alexander-Arnold’s case, if he goes to Real Madrid. They might be guided by that because often players and agents especially are.
“It would leave a massive hole in the Liverpool setup, though. That’s why they’re so desperate to keep them. They would then have to go and recruit replacements from elsewhere and from what I’ve heard, they don’t have a limitless budget to spend.”
It’d cost a lot more to replace them than to keep them
Liverpool are wise to cut their cloth accordingly when it comes to their wage structure, although the exits of Thiago Alcantara and Joel Matip at the end of last season freed up £300,000 per week from the bill, a saving which you’d imagine could be put towards incentivising Salah, Trent and Van Dijk to stay.
It mightn’t be the most pragmatic strategy to hand out lucrative new contracts to the Egyptian winger and Dutch defender when they’ll be 33 and 34 respectively next summer, but the benefits of keeping the world-class duo for an extra year or two would surely outweigh the costs of any prospective new deals for them.
Brown is right to point out that, even if the trio (who are also the club’s three highest-paid players) were to depart in 2025, it’d require an altogether greater expenditure to replace them with alternatives of the requisite quality.
Even with Liverpool having a very strong starting XI and plenty of reliable depth in the squad, to lose Salah, Trent and Van Dijk from the team would leave enormous gaps to be filled at a cost which wouldn’t destabilise the accounts.
FSG have left themselves in a far from ideal situation, but hopefully they can come to some agreement with the trio instead of letting them walk away for nothing next year.
