Liverpool won’t be losing Mohamed Salah at the end of the season and the expectation is that Virgil van Dijk will be sticking around too. Trent Alexander-Arnold, though, is likely to join Real Madrid.
That always seemed like the likeliest outcome in the triple contract saga, with two players staying and the other only lost because of the temptation of trying something new. Salah and Van Dijk are at the best club to continue their careers, and more silverware and individual records will quickly be chased.
Arne Slot won’t want to lose Alexander-Arnold’s ability on the field, but his influence and experience off the pitch is valuable too. He is, after all, the Reds’ vice-captain who has won the lot with his boyhood club. That leadership role is one Liverpool will have to replace.
When Van Dijk succeeded Jordan Henderson as club captain in the summer of 2023 and there was a reshuffle in the leadership group at Anfield under Jurgen Klopp, Alexander-Arnold was promoted to the second-in-command position. He had long made his ambition of wearing the captain’s armband clear.
Alongside Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold, there is also Salah, Andy Robertson and Alisson Becker. Between the five experienced stars, the tone is set in the dressing room.
The likes of Alexis Mac Allister, who has won the World Cup with Argentina, and Ibrahima Konate, who is an experienced center-back, are growing in stature. Diogo Jota is another who has been at Anfield for a long time.
Of those players in the leadership group specifically, Robertson, who captains his national team, Scotland, would be an obvious pick to replace Alexander-Arnold in the event that he was to leave. So too would Salah, who skippers Egypt. And with his future sorted out, Salah can put himself properly in the conversation.
“Honestly, I was very disappointed,” Salah once told the Spanish news outlet AS, expressing his frustration at being overlooked for the captaincy for a Champions League game against Midtjylland in December 2020. “I was expecting to be the captain. But it’s a manager’s decision, so I accept it.”
Robertson, who will only have a year left on his contract by the time the summer comes, is third in line for the armband but if Liverpool signs a new left-back in the summer, he might no longer be the first choice. Given there is no chance of Salah finding himself in a position, he might just get the armband a little more often.
