Liverpool in talks with Mohamed Salah over new contract

Liverpool are in talks with Mohamed Salah over a new contract at Anfield that would seek to extend his stay at the club for up to two more years beyond the end of his current deal in 2023.

Liverpool, although relatively quiet on the transfer front, have been busy with new contracts this summer and have already secured extensions with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alisson, Fabinho and Virgil van Dijk to keep core parts of their title winning team together.

Salah signed his last long-term deal shortly after representing Egypt at the 2018 World Cup and has seen his income grow by bonuses that have been triggered by Liverpool’s on-field success since.

Talks over a new contract have been expected for some time but the issue was brought into the public sphere at the weekend when Salah’s long-time adviser and agent Remy Abbas Issa posted a barely disguised message to the club when the Egyptian scored against Norwich.

“I hope they’re watching,” read the viral tweet, shared and liked thousands of times.

The Athletic reports that contract negotiations with Salah are ‘already underway’ and Liverpool are aiming to reach an agreement over a new deal until 2025.

Salah’s current contract is worth £200,000 per week but it is said that Liverpool have financial limits and aren’t prepared to ignore the wage structure that has underpinned their recent success.

It is said that Liverpool officials appreciate that Salah deserves to be paid in accordance with his status as one of the world’s best players, yet the Reds already have the second highest wage bill in the Premier League and have been significantly affected by the coronavirus pandemic – they initially wanted to furlough non-playing staff to cut costs and posted a pre-tax loss of £46m for 2019/20.

An early disagreement over what Salah is worth could have been behind his agent’s tweet.

Salah has fuelled transfer speculation in the past. He gave an interview to Spanish publication AS in late 2020 in which he praised Real Madrid and Barcelona as ‘top clubs’ and refused to rule anything out in the future. His representatives have also considered a transfer and 90min was informed shortly after the interview that while Salah isn’t actively looking to leave Liverpool and is not unhappy at the club, his camp have explored potential options of their own volition.

The financial situation at Europe’s top clubs has ensured it hasn’t been possible for that to progress. The issue for Liverpool is that trying to replace Salah in the transfer market would be vastly expensive and it makes sense that keeping him instead is the priority.

In addition to ongoing talks with Salah, Liverpool are believed to have reached an agreement with Jordan Henderson following an initial lack of progress, while The Athletic adds that talks with agents representing Sadio Mane and Andrew Robertson have also now started.

For more from Jamie Spencer, follow him on Twitter and Facebook!