FSG might just have to ask themselves a major question over Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool future, writes Paul Gorst
If it is not too arrogant or condescending an assertion, the highlight of the LASK fans’ evening on Thursday night was likely the arrival of a certain Mohamed Salah.
While the celebration of a superb Florian Flecker strike, to open the scoring in the Reds’ 3-1 win, might be the debatable point, there were at least very few denying who the headline act was inside the Raiffeisen Arena when Liverpool superstar Salah emerged from the substitutes’ bench after 74 minutes played.
The Egyptian joined the game to a hero’s welcome from both sets of supporters in the Austrian city of Linz before he turned in the sort of eye-catching, game-sealing cameo that has become his calling card for the Reds.
A slaloming run took him past the challenges of Flecker and Andres Andrade late on in the game before a smart finish saw him slip it past the goalkeeper at his near post with an impudent nutmeg.
In a season where Salah has seemingly become creator-in-chief at Anfield – he has four assists and was denied a fifth on a technicality at Wolves – he also remains the most potent goalscorer too.
Only Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez are level with three apiece in the early weeks of the campaign and for a new-look and relatively inexperienced squad, Salah’s influence and enduring brilliance will be needed in spades this term, certainly for a younger forward line looking to emulate the No.11 at Anfield.
Salah has now either assisted or scored in each of his last 12 games and since the start of last season – beginning with the Community Shield win over Manchester City – the 31-year-old has contributed to 53 goals (20 assists and 33 goals).
He remains, without question, the main man at Anfield – perhaps now more than ever – and while it is difficult to expand further on everything that has been written about the club’s all-time leading scorer in European and Premier League football during a decorated six-year stint to date, what comes next for both the club and the player will be fascinating.
Is he the finest player in world football on current form? Former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson claimed so earlier this week and there is ample evidence for those wishing to make that particular case right now. But if Al-Ettifaq’s Henderson was merely talking up the talents and his admiration for a friend and former colleague, it also brought the Saudi Arabia question subtly back into focus.
Since an offer worth up to £150m from Al-Ittihad was firmly rejected by Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon on transfer deadline day, there has been a general assumption around Salah’s next move.
Eventually, we’re told, the Egypt captain will return to the Middle East as the biggest star of the ambitious and impossibly wealthy Saudi Pro League. The overall quality of the football itself is rarely factored into the debate. The money, so goes the theory, will be enough to seal it.
But considerable financial renumeration aside, the big question around it all remains: just why exactly?
Of course, as arguably the biggest Muslim athlete on the planet, the chance to be the face of the Saudi Pro League might appeal directly to Salah, but how much that will actually hold sway when weighed up against the chance of competing for and possibly winning the biggest prizes in football with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool only he will know.
For now, it is a prospect Salah and Liverpool’s supporters will be happy to push on to the back burner but with just under two years left on the biggest contract of all time on Merseyside, at somewhere around the £350,000-a-week mark, is there merit, from FSG’s perspective, in holding the most informal of Boston boardroom talks about an extension?
While the most recent deal, signed on the Greek island of Mykonos in late June last year, was the culmination of months of hard and intense negotiations between the club and Salah’s representative Ramy Abbas, might an agreement to continue the wildly successful partnership further be easier to solve this time around?
Salah is clearly showing no signs of slowing down and his uber-professional dedication to his craft will ensure he is capable of starring well into his mid-to-late 30s in the same manner of Lionel Messi (36) and Cristiano Ronaldo (38), two players who have only relatively recently stepped away from the spotlight of elite European football.
The apparent boom of football in Saudi Arabia is simply not translating to the masses. The average attendance across the league this season stands at around 10,000. Only one of the 18 clubs have an average of over 25,000, which is less than half of Anfield. If Salah remains determined to continue setting new records at the top level, a move to the Middle East cannot be on his agenda.
Salah will have more salubrious surroundings to conquer than LASK’s Raiffeisen Arena during the remainder of his time at Liverpool. But he won’t quite be able to make such a claim if he leaves for the Saudi Pro League.
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