It was the casual way in which Arne Slot threw the name of Mohamed Salah away in the Anfield Press Conference Room early on Sunday evening that screamed his meaning.
“It's so hard to win a game of football,” said Slot. 'People always have the feeling:' Ah, you have Mo Salah, what are you talking about? He will always score a goal ”. No – it's hard. '
Salah almost always scores or actually helps a goal. He has not succeeded in producing one this season in just four of the 25 Premier League matches of Liverpool, scored 38.3 percent of the team's goals and had more target involvement than nine entire teams in the division .
The Salah dependence of Liverpool has been indisputable in recent weeks. He did not really close games, but with optimum efficiency he has been beaten.
There was the goal and casually cut Cross for the bullet header of Alexis Mac Allister in Goodison Park. The punishment against wolves. Even his absence in Plymouth. “I think Liverpool should realize how important it is to keep him,” said Graeme Souness about the FA Cup defeat.
Slot's language about Salah seems so much warmer than that of Jurgen Klopp. “He is so experienced and smart and knows so well where the ball will fall,” said Slot last Friday. “That is a positive matter of being 32 – he has experienced so many situations.” The feeling seems to be mutual. “Excellent in his work,” the agent of Salah tweeted on Friday from Slot. Not the kind of public love he expressed for Klopp.
Relations with those higher in the Liverpool -food chain do not seem so hot. Salah feels a little less loved there.
Liverpool is in a binding about how much to invest to commit to the expansion of his contract.
He becomes 33 in June and to keep him past that age goes against the grain of the data -driven Ethos on which the return of Liverpool to the top of the British game is based.
Central to that Ethos is the fact that there are no guarantees what a player of that age will offer you. A physical dip and depreciation of the asset will inevitable. Liverpool generally does not register for such decisions.
But Salah, built as a torpedo and delivering better statistics than two years ago, is also against the usual physical standards.
A Liverpool team without him would be a shadow of the current one. The replacements that Liverpool has viewed are Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford, Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo, Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund and Real Sociedad's Takefusa Kubo. But could one of these deliver the goals of Salah?
There would be more certainty about Alexander Isak from Newcastle. But the publication can be £ 120 million and maybe wages £ 350,000 a week. Salah is the man who is already in the building, with all certainties that entails. It looks a very easy comparison and the position of Liverpool is that they want to keep it. It is the figures – wages and length of deal – that are uncertain.
Would he stay for a lower basic salary and more based on performance in the next two years?
The negotiating position of Salah is reinforced by the fact that the other strikers rotates nowhere near the same target threat. Diogo Jota, who starts his first league match in four months on Sunday, has struggled with fitness and places itself nowhere near the same number of scores situations. His expected goals (XG) figure for this season and the latter is 16.8. Salah's is 52.7. Jota could not grab the leftovers against wolves.
Cody Gakpo has been the emerging force this season – used with a much greater effect due to lock than Klopp. But the goal of Luis Diaz on Sunday was his first this calendar year, and Darwin Nunez, popular because of his work ethics, lacks consistency. Although Salah has scored 53 times of an XG of 52.7, NUNEZ has scored 24 goals of an XG of 33.6, so it is underperforming with almost 10 goals.
In the large Liverpool era of the seventies and 80s there was currently an obvious solution. When Kevin Keegan, under the spell of European football, told Bob Paisley that he wanted to leave, Kenny Dalglish was the ideal replacement. Salah is even more integral in Liverpool than Keegan was then, but this time there is no clear Dalglish figure.
An extra two years for Salah would enable Liverpool to spend a replacement and bring about a sort of follow -up, a challenge, although that kind of process is in modern times. Under Paisley, large signing sessions such as Ray Kennedy and Terry McDermott were signed and then initiated in the Liverpool way while they were waiting for their time on the sidelines.
There have been hints of a breakthrough with Salah. A senior adviser to the Saudi Pro League was quoted last week and said that the Saudis felt that they were 'used' in negotiations for a contract with which Hilal would already see a report of £ 65 million for two seasons. The adviser said, “We get less indication from the player that he even considering moving here.”
A joint announcement stating that Salah and Virgil van Dijk should remain, would be a huge boost in the midst of Liverpool's attempt to continue to the title.
In the meantime, the club will take the usual confidence to have Salah in the side in Aston Villa on Wednesday evening.
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