Mohamed Salah said he was only 10 per cent confident that he would end up signing a new contract at Liverpool. The Egyptian ended months of speculation surrounding his future earlier in April as he put pen to paper on a two-year extension at Anfield.
Salah said that Liverpool’s history of dealing with players over the age of 30 led him to believe, earlier in the campaign, that this season would be his last at the club.
Asked in a Sky Sports interview with Gary Neville what percentage chance he thought that there would have been of him staying at the club, Salah responded: “Based on the club’s history, 10 per cent. We know the philosophy of the club. I’m not attacking them, just I know how they deal with their players over 30 in the past.
“I know how the situation would be. I never expected that the club was going to say, ok you’ve got two years there, we reach the point with the money, all of us are happy, so I didn’t expect that I’m going to stay. In my head, based on the club’s philosophy, I will not stay.
“We know how the club works, it’s not something bad, we’d just seen how they deal with the situation in the past. Based on the experience in the past, we just judge the situation.
“I think it took like six months for the negotiations to just really quickly. I think from January, February, we thought ok now things are getting better and better, so it took a while. The club was testing me to see if I can still provide or not.”