Mohamed Salah is hitting heights that few Liverpool players have reached. It should be the easiest decision in the club’s history to extend the Egyptian’s contract beyond its 2023 expiry date. Jurgen Klopp has said that the striker is the best player in the world at the moment. So why the delay after a summer when a number of Anfield’s core players had their deals extended and were handed pay rises?
Football is never quite as simple as it looks. Salah is looking for at least parity with his Premier League peers — Kevin De Bruyne earns in the region of £380,000 per week at Manchester City. This presents Fenway Sports Group (FSG) with a huge decision. To satisfy the goalscorer, Liverpool’s owners will have to double his current wages to £400,000 a week. That would be a gamble in their eyes.
If it was a simple matter of talent FSG would sign the cheque now. Salah is the player who, more than any other, vindicates the recruitment ethos that the Americans have brought to Merseyside.
They desperately wanted to sign him from Basel in 2014. Brendan Rodgers, the manager at the time, was less certain and dithered, allowing Chelsea to gazump their rivals. FSG had to wait another three years to get their man, eventually paying Roma £36.9 million for his services. Liverpool’s scouts were certain that he had the potential to become a superstar.
The problem is that Salah is 29. FSG’s concern is that they will be tied into a huge contract for a player entering his thirties next summer. Their philosophy is built around youth and value. The fear is that they will be stuck with a player in decline banking a massive salary.
Virgil van Dijk is 30 and the club extended his deal in August. The difference is that the Dutchman earns £220,000 per week. That is a long way short of Salah’s demands.
Sadio Mane, 29, and Roberto Firmino, 30, are also out of contract in two years’ time. Decisions need to be made on how to reshape the front three by balancing costs and effectiveness. Salah is the most marketable of the three and would recoup the biggest fee if sold next summer. However, if he extends his deal before his attacking teammates, their financial expectations will soar.
Salah’s worth cannot be gleaned from a mere balance sheet. The emotional and psychological impact of his leaving would be huge. His performance in the 5-0 victory over Watford on Saturday was reminiscent of Kenny Dalglish, the greatest player in Liverpool’s history.
Atletico Madrid 2 Liverpool 3: player ratings
The pass with the outside of his foot for Mane’s opening goal evoked the Scot at his most creative and delicate. Then Salah extricated himself from a gaggle of players in the opposition area to score an exquisite strike that underlined the comparisons with Dalglish.
On Wednesday he blew past Atletico Madrid defenders in a style that brought to mind John Barnes or Steven Gerrard before firing into the net to set Liverpool on their way to a 3-2 win in the Spanish capital.
Salah ranks with the most legendary members of the Anfield pantheon. The goalscoring records tell only half the story. He is one of those rare players whose presence affects opposition thinking and sends a surge of belief through his own dressing room. There is no price on what he brings to the team. To allow him to depart next summer would disgust supporters and lower the club’s prestige.
Klopp’s team is set up to get the best out of Salah. For all the praise handed out to Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, the system works because of the forward’s pace and movement.
FSG do not have many options. They need their talisman. By contrast, Salah does not need Liverpool. He is a man in demand. He has a great sense of his own status and knows he has one more big move in him. Spain is an attractive option and although there are a limited number of clubs who can afford him, there will be a short, filthy-rich queue for his signature if he departs Anfield.
Liverpool need to make him an offer he cannot refuse. It would be foolish to let him leave while he is at the top of his game.
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Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
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The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
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Transmission: 10-speed automatic
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
New schools in Dubai
Anxiety and work stress major factors
Anxiety, work stress and social isolation are all factors in the recogised rise in mental health problems.
A study UAE Ministry of Health researchers published in the summer also cited struggles with weight and illnesses as major contributors.
Its authors analysed a dozen separate UAE studies between 2007 and 2017. Prevalence was often higher in university students, women and in people on low incomes.
One showed 28 per cent of female students at a Dubai university reported symptoms linked to depression. Another in Al Ain found 22.2 per cent of students had depressive symptoms - five times the global average.
It said the country has made strides to address mental health problems but said: “Our review highlights the overall prevalence of depressive symptoms and depression, which may long have been overlooked."
Prof Samir Al Adawi, of the department of behavioural medicine at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, who was not involved in the study but is a recognised expert in the Gulf, said how mental health is discussed varies significantly between cultures and nationalities.
“The problem we have in the Gulf is the cross-cultural differences and how people articulate emotional distress," said Prof Al Adawi.
“Someone will say that I have physical complaints rather than emotional complaints. This is the major problem with any discussion around depression."
Daniel Bardsley
GAC GS8 Specs
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
