Recent Posts1
Liverpool FC Forum / Re: Mohamed Salah - Best in the World *
« Last post by decosabute on Today at 01:55:22 pm »Feels like no-one who is horrified at people even discussing selling him is prepared to actually answer these questions. Currently, he's leaving in a year on a free - that's where we're at, that's the base scenario. If you don't want that to happen, you either sell him now or you offer him a 2-year extension on £300-400k until he's 35, keeping him amongst the highest paid players in the league - those are likely the options we're working with. I personally think a 1-year extension and/or reduced wages would be our best option, but I think that's almost certainly a non-starter from Salah's own perspective. So for those arguing it's lunacy to sell now, what do you actually think we should do? (not Coolie, he's at least stated that he thinks we should renew Salah's contract). If the contract situation was different the argument would be different because we could just wait and see, but we have to make a decision about this in the next 6 months. If you don't think we should be offering another enormously expensive contract, then all you're really arguing is whether he should leave this summer or next summer, and whether we should try and get some money out of it.
This idea that "we can't replace him" therefore we can't have a discussion about it just doesn't hold any water for me. What's the plan, liquidate the club when Salah retires? We never replaced our greatest ever midfielder in Gerrard, but we've done alright since.
Teams evolve, players emerge, landscapes change. I don't really agree either with the idea that it would be more palatable if the rest of the attack was functioning - Salah is a fairly big part of this problem right now (even just in terms of his role/position, before even getting into form), and it doesn't get magically better if he stays another year, with another year on the clock, and another year of us having to likely tweak our tactics to suit a player who can't physically do what he used to - how does that help the others? Small sample sizes and all that, but we've scored more in the league without him this season, and he's actually third in our squad in terms of minutes per non-penalty goal. I'm not one who thinks stats tell the full story, but the idea that we could just never, ever, ever possibly replace his goals seems wildly overstated to me (the biggest issue with this is that Jota can't stay fit). Replacing his all round production (goals and assists) is far, far tougher, but again people are fixating on replacing a player that may or may not still exist at that level by the time next season kicks off. The 2025 version of Salah very likely won't be able to replace the 2023 version.
Which is not to say we won't miss him when he goes - of course we will, massively. But he is going, whether it's this summer or next summer (or maybe the one after that, at a push). So unless the plan is to just give up on being competitive again when he does, then we're going to have to have a go at replacing him/what he brings at some point.
Outstanding post. Agree with every bit of it and you've expressed my thoughts far better than I could.
