Liverpool fans are still in a state of shock over the news that manager Jurgen Klopp is to leave the club this summer. But with rumours about star striker Mohamed Salah also leaving the club being met with a deafening silence, should Liverpool fans be preparing for a double blow this summer?
What was Jurgen Klopp doing?
Mohamed Salah is a Liverpool legend. When Jurgen Klopp signed him from Roma in 2017, fans were wondering what he was doing. Both fans and critics expected to see the same underachieving player that Chelsea let go a year earlier lining up in the red of Liverpool instead.
How wrong were they? Every year, Salah has produced the goods for Liverpool, becoming a three-time Premier League Golden Boot winner.
Mohamed Salah with the Golden Boot and Playmaker awards ???????????? pic.twitter.com/g6bBxC4Vvf
— Liverpool FC News (@LivEchoLFC) May 22, 2022
And even when he’s not winning the award, he’s amongst the front runners. This year he’s not the betting favourite with the bookmakers. But he is third favourite at 7/1 in the latest EPL top goalscorer odds, and with Salah’s Liverpool team second favourite to win the Premier League, he will no doubt get plenty more chances to add to his goal-scoring tally for the current season.
Is it the end of the Salah era as well?
But could this season be his last year in the EPL? All eras come to an end at some point, and with the Klopp era ending this summer, could it be that Salah decides it’s time for him to move on as well?
The Egyptian national is only 31 – he isn’t exactly over the hill. He looks after himself, and as the likes of Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski have proven, age is only a number if a player keeps himself in good form.
But the silence is starting to become deafening. There are no noisy denials from the player or the club. Words, yes. Outright denials, no.
???? Klopp on Mo Salah: “If somebody really questions the loyalty of Mo Salah, I think he should ask himself if his loyalty is right”.
“Mo Salah is the most loyal Egyptian I’ve ever met in my life”. pic.twitter.com/xv9Spy6g3N
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) January 25, 2024
And with the sheer amount of Saudi dollars rumoured to be on offer, could this simply be a deal that is too good to turn down for both player and club?
A sale fits in with the club’s long-term philosophy
Liverpool has a long-term philosophy of buying young players and turning them into superstars. Selling at the right time and for the right price is part of that philosophy.
The club hierarchy is going to have to think hard if an offer similar to the one rumoured to have come in from RSL team Al-Ittihad last summer comes in again for Salah 2024. The striker will only have one year left on his contract. And Liverpool simply can’t afford to risk letting Salah walk away for nothing in 2025 when they could get a multi-million-pound price for him in 2024.
A season of consolidation lies ahead
The 2024/25 season is likely to be one of consolidation for the club. A new manager will be settling in, and even though the new manager would want to have the services of Salah to call on, the facts are that it could be the right time to try and move on without him.
There seems little point in letting the manager start to build his team, only to see Salah leave the club 12 months later. The right time could be now, unless a new contract is agreed.
It appears Liverpool fans may not only need to enjoy Klopp over the next few weeks, but also enjoy Salah – he might well be joining his manager heading out of the Anfield exit door.
