According to one Liverpool-focused journalist, Mo Salah has pulled off a ‘PR masterstroke’ with his recent public utterances about his contract situation at Anfield.
The Egyptian told reporters after the recent win over Southampton that he’s yet to be offered new terms on Merseyside with just seven months remaining on his current deal, while he claimed after Sunday’s victory over Manchester City that it could be his ‘last’ time facing them with the Reds.
Numerous LFC fans have made their feelings clear on the matter by displaying banners at matches imploring FSG to agree a contract extension for the club’s fifth-highest scorer of all time, who’s already struck 13 times in 20 games this season, along with supplying 11 assists.
Hughes hails ‘PR masterstroke’ from Salah
Simon Hughes – who reported this week (via The Athletic) that Salah would readily agree to a one-year deal but is growing increasingly frustrated at how the negotiations have been handled so far – told the Walk On podcast that the 32-year-old isn’t being unreasonable with his stance on the contractual impasse.
The journalist said: “Mohamed Salah is open to the idea of a one-year contract at Liverpool, a one-year contract extension.
“Of course, there’s been a lot of debate over the last couple of weeks about what his expectations are. I mean, the information that I’ve had which is put in the piece is that he’s very frustrated at the pace of the negotiations and where they are at at the moment.
“It’s certainly not a case of him saying, ‘Right, I want three years, all that security’, but what he does expect is to be paid in keeping with the best players in the world, which I don’t think anybody can deny that he is at the moment.
“From my perspective, I mean, it seems like quite a, would be a sensible thing for everybody to agree on, really. It’s a PR masterstroke. It’s backed Fenway Sports Group into a corner, and if now he leaves, signs a pre-contract with a foreign club on 1 January, everyone will turn and point fingers. He’s compromised.
“He’s not saying, ‘I want to play till I’m 39’ or anything. He’s saying, ‘Just give me another year. I want to stay at Anfield’.”
FSG would be daft not to give Salah at least an extra year
Having been at Liverpool for nearly seven-and-a-half years and been a consistently prolific goalscorer in that time, Salah knows full well that he has the adoration of the fan base, and that in a popularity contest against FSG he’d be the clear winner.
If he’s prepared to compromise on a one-year deal to keep him at Anfield until at least 2026, it should be the definition of a no-brainer, in the words of Andy Jones, Hughes’ colleague at The Athletic.
The Reds cleared £300,000 off their weekly wage bill when Thiago Alcantara and Joel Matip departed after the end of last season; and although the club might also be trying to feasibly arrange new contracts for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk, it’d seem preposterous to think that they don’t have the funds to commit to keeping the Egyptian for an additional 12 months.
It could take a generous remuneration to persuade Salah to stay, but for the sake of an extra year it’d surely be worth the outlay, especially when the player’s apparent preference is to remain at Anfield.
Liverpool do need to start thinking about how they replace the 32-year-old in the long-term, but if they can agree to keep him on until at least 2026, that’d give them more wiggle room to look towards identifying and recruiting a successor rather than having to rush into what’ll be a pivotal decision.
As the fans have said, ‘give Mo his dough’!
