Mo Salah's Liverpool days now look NUMBERED

Liverpool spent a long time last season worrying about three contracts - Virgil van Dijk’s, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s and Mohamed Salah’s.

Although Alexander-Arnold was ultimately lost to Real Madrid, two out of three wasn’t bad for Richard Hughes - the club’s sporting director.

Van Dijk and Salah are both contracted until 2027 having led the Reds to their 20th top-flight title last season. Both contracts came at a considerable cost.

It was reported at the time that Van Dijk and Salah were both raking in £400k per week apiece as part of their new deals. That means the best part of £84m will be spent on the club legends before their contracts expire in less than two years.

Van Dijk has mostly kept up his end of the bargain - often holding the defence together on his own and largely being responsible for Arne Slot’s build-up play.

But Salah has been posted missing.

Salah gets my vote as Liverpool's GOAT

This isn’t to diminish his achievements since joining in 2017 - in fact he gets my vote as the greatest Liverpool player of all-time - but he has been nowhere close to his consistent best for about seven months now.

Every now and again he pulls it out of the bag - for example the game against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League - but he is no longer doing it at the highest level week after week.

When Salah was driving up mammoth numbers of goals and assists last season he could be forgiven for flitting in and out of Liverpool’s general play. He did the business where it mattered.

But those goals and assists have diminished - leaving Liverpool with a very, very expensive and underperforming player.

Liverpool not being bailed out by Salah

He could not even be relied upon to get his customary goal against Manchester United on Sunday - snatching badly at the one golden opportunity that came his way.

He’s only got two in the Premier League this season - one penalty and one from open play on opening day. By this stage last term he had five goals and five assists.

Obviously the game has changed somewhat - in that Liverpool’s attack looks so much different right now and they are also coping with the loss of Diogo Jota - but they are NOT being bailed out by Salah with anywhere close to the same regularity.

The writing is on the wall

So what’s the long-term plan for Salah?

Is Richard Hughes really going to watch him enter a decline on £400k per week for the next two years?

The thought of Salah playing like this for Liverpool up until his 35th birthday does not bode well. And don’t forget he’s got an AFCON in December to play as well as the World Cup next summer.

In fact it looks like the writing could be on the wall for Salah and an exit beckons.

Antoine Semenyo and Michael Olise could provide long-term alternatives in the position and Liverpool could at least make SOME of their money back by selling Salah with a year left on his contract.

Galatasaray were reported to be interested of late and of course there is interest in him from Saudi Arabia. The big issue will be the size of the market for a £400k per week, 34-year-old winger - coming off the back of two international tournaments and another 60-game season at club level.

So let’s hope Salah can use these next few months to demonstrate that he’s not done yet. Otherwise dealing with that problem will fall on Hughes and Arne Slot.

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