Mohamed Salah has signed a new contract at Liverpool, as you’ll no doubt have seen by now. That’s brilliant news for the club, bringing to an end a long and anxious wait — but while it’s a big victory, there are both winners and losers from the extension.
The overall effect at Anfield is clearly an overwhelmingly positive one. Salah has proved beyond all doubt this season that he is far from finished, producing what is surely his best ever campaign for the club.
He has taken to life under Arne Slot with no trouble at all, proving just as important to the Dutchman as he was to Jurgen Klopp. He will now shift his sights to chasing down even more records and even more trophies.
With that in mind, we’ll start with Slot. He will be as delighted as anyone that Salah has extended his stay.
Winner – Arne Slot
Slot has already worked wonders at Anfield. He stands on the brink of a Premier League title, despite the sum total of summer business consisting of Federico Chiesa and a future agreement to sign a new second-choice goalkeeper.
But to win the league without any significant signings would be one thing. To do it again having actually lost key players would be quite another.
It does not undermine Slot’s achievements to say that he has leaned heavily on the brilliance of Salah. In fact, it’s a credit to him that he has managed to squeeze even more out of the Egyptian, something which scarcely seemed possible.
For all he has done so far, Slot would almost have needed to rip up the playbook and start again if Salah had walked away in the summer. Nobody Liverpool signed could have been a like-for-like replacement.
Instead, the Liverpool boss can plan for two more years of Salah. Changes will still be needed elsewhere, but Slot will have the chance to build on strong foundations, rather than knocking down his first great team and starting over from scratch.
Loser – Trent Alexander-Arnold
With Salah’s contract agreed and Virgil van Dijk seemingly on the verge of a new deal too, an even harsher light of scrutiny shines on Trent Alexander-Arnold. Any hopes of skulking out quietly alongside the other two are up in smoke now.
Naturally, Alexander-Arnold was always going to be viewed differently anyway, as the Academy boy who had professed his wish to one day be captain. But if he does leave for Real Madrid as expected, he will certainly be compared to Salah in deeply unfavorable terms.
(Image: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
After all, Salah has no innate reason to be loyal to Liverpool. He’s not a boyhood fan, he doesn’t owe his entire career to the club, and he no doubt had head-turning money from Saudi Arabia on the table.
Yet he has remained loyal. Fairly or not, it makes Alexander-Arnold look even worse, unless he has a late change of heart.
Winner – Richard Hughes
It has been easy to wonder what Richard Hughes has been doing for much of his tenure at Liverpool so far. After all, a quiet summer in the transfer market was followed by a long patch of radio silence on the contract front.
There have been various assurances from industry insiders that the new sporting director has conducted himself very impressively behind the scenes. But in terms of tangible results, there has been little to go on until now.
Thankfully, securing an extension for Salah has to go down as a major victory. It’s easy to forget, with Liverpool having grown so accustomed to his brilliance, but he is perhaps the best player in the world at the moment.
So that should lift some of the pressure off Hughes. Letting Salah go in his first season in the role would have been getting off on the wrong foot, to put it mildly.
Loser – Harvey Elliott
If you were to ask Harvey Elliott, he would express delight that Salah has decided to stay. The pair have developed a close bond, with the 32-year-old something of a mentor.
Yet it’s hard to deny that the continued presence of Salah is a dent to Elliott’s prospects. Whereas Klopp liked to use the former Fulham man almost exclusively in midfield, Slot has used him as more of an understudy on the right wing.
It’s been a shame seeing Elliott serve such a peripheral role this season, and with Salah now going nowhere, it’s hard to imagine that changing significantly. Amid whispers that Liverpool could sell if a suitable offer came in, at least one player’s future is actually now less certain than before the contract was signed.
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Winner – Dominik Szoboszlai
As well as being the other player freezing Elliott out, Dominik Szoboszlai is also an important part of the triangle on Liverpool’s right flank. Alexander-Arnold may still yet break up the trio, but the continued presence of Salah is a big win.
Szoboszlai has been very impressive in his own right, but his interplay with Salah has elevated his game still further. The winger has been the league’s best creator this season as well as the best finisher, and the Hungarian has been one of the beneficiaries.
With Salah turning 33 in the summer, his role in the system has to reflect that, so Szoboszlai may well have to get through even more running next season — no mean feat. But he will not be complaining, with his fruitful relationship down the right now set to continue.
Loser – Manchester United
Remarkably, Salah is the seventh-highest scorer at Old Trafford in the 2020s — including Manchester United players. More than halfway through the decade, that’s a frankly ludicrous statistic.
Salah has bullied Man United beyond belief. He has scored more goals against the Red Devils than against anybody else, with 16 goals and six assists in 17 appearances (despite not registering a single goal or assist in his first four outings).
Every Premier League rival would have been keen to see the back of Salah. But nobody would have been more eager for his departure than Manchester United, which now faces the prospect of at least four more trials at the hands of its tormentor.
