The ECHO has learned that Mohamed Salah would like to sign a new contract with Liverpool

After clinically putting Manchester United to the sword before placing Liverpool’s decision makers on notice over his contract impasse, Sunday evening’s recovery session might have felt extra soothing for Mohamed Salah.

There will have been plenty to reflect on for a satisfied Salah as he undertook his usual post-match routines after that 3-0 humbling of the Reds’ most fierce rivals, in what remains the most-watched club fixture in football.

If he felt any need to make a statement, this was it, in all its glory at Old Trafford, and the only downside will be that the insatiable frontman will have been disappointed not to have furnished his goal tally further, such was the team’s dominance at United.

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But having fired a ‘quiver full of arrows’ once more in tribute to UFC superstar Israel Adesanya when celebrating his third goal of the campaign, it was the shot across the bows of Fenway Sports Group that really got people talking, post-match.

“Honestly, I had a good summer,” Salah said. “I had a long time to stay with myself, try to think positive because as you know it’s my last year at the club. I just want to enjoy it, I don’t want to think about it but I feel free to play football, we will see next year.”

When pushed to clarify his words in a chat with former team-mate Daniel Sturridge, he added: “To be fair, I was coming to the game and I said: ‘It could be my last time.’ The club has not talked to me yet so I will play my last season and see at the end of the season.”

That came days after an interview with Sky Sports, where Salah stated: “I don’t want to think about next year, I don’t want to think about the future, I just [say]: ‘Okay, let’s enjoy the last year and we will see’. Every week [being at my best] is the most important thing. Just take one day at a time and just be grateful to be here and that is it.”

Allowing a player of Salah’s rare gifts to get to within four months of being able to speak to clubs about a free transfer appears to be negligence on behalf of Liverpool and their owners. But the optics do little to explain the upheaval and transition behind the scenes on Merseyside for what is now close to two years.

Salah was just a handful of months into terms he signed on the Greek island of Mykonos in late June 2022 when then sporting director Julian Ward handed in his notice. His replacement, Jorg Schmadtke, penned a one-year agreement and was recruited to work specifically around the 2023 summer window and focus on rebuilding the club’s midfield department.

The German freely admitted he was simply facilitating the wishes of Jurgen Klopp and had his time with the Reds cut short at the end of January when the former manager confirmed his end-of-season exit.

Richard Hughes, Schmadtke’s permanent replacement, didn’t technically start until the beginning of June, by which time Salah was into the final year of his deal. With Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold in the same boat, it would be unfair to lay the responsibility at the door of the current sporting director, who had a bulging in-tray upon his arrival.

Michael Edwards, who returned to the club under a new, wider remit as FSG’s CEO of football at the start of June, has become famed for his ability to remove the emotion from the decision-making process and it was a technique that helped Liverpool thrive during Klopp’s glory years of 2019 and 2022, when they won every top-level trophy available.

A new deal is based around what it is felt you will contribute during that time frame as opposed to what has preceded it and the general data, which informs the Reds on virtually every decision, suggests players rarely improve from 32 onwards. The opposite, in fact, is true; a natural regression is often the case.

And with Salah in possession of the single biggest contract ever handed out to a player at Anfield, it is not as simple as signing an extension for more money. The self-sustaining and yes, uber-cautious, model that FSG insist Liverpool be run by makes few exceptions.

In the case of Salah, however, there is a very legitimate argument that he is a unique footballer who is the outlier to the data by which Liverpool and FSG steadfastly use as guidance. Those writing the record books have barely had a week without adding to them where the Reds’ star man is concerned and the all-time top scorer of the Premier League era on Merseyside now has 214 goals to his name.

The ECHO has spoken to numerous sources and it is understood Salah is desperate to extend his stay at Liverpool beyond this summer. Having had the Saudi Pro League’s riches wafted in his face last August when FSG president Mike Gordon personally declined a £150m offer from Al-Ittihad, the Reds’ No.11 is now thinking only of extending his stay as it stands.

The determination to get closer to Ian Rush in the all-time scoring charts at Liverpool burns bright but so too will his standing in the Premier League’s rankings, with Salah now inside the top 10 after his three-goal start to the current campaign. A place in the top five will be secured if he reaches 28 goals this season.

Sources close to the player have told the ECHO how he and his family love Liverpool and have spoken about how settled they are in the North West after seven wildly successful years with the club. “He’s speaking about his daughter being from Liverpool,” says one. “She is one of the city’s people in his eyes.”

Sturridge told Sky Sports on Sunday: “I would be surprised [if they let him go]. Mo has achieved pretty much everything he could at the club but I’ve not seen him happier.

“The way he was speaking then was as if, ‘I want to be at the club’. If the club are going to give him what he wants then he’ll stay. I really hope he does stay because he’s been magnificent.”

Five years ago, Salah shared the Golden Boot with his Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane and Arsenal star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and it speaks to the ceaseless dedication, professionalism and enduring brilliance of the Egyptian that he is still operating at that same level while so many others have left English football and have dropped down the pecking order considerably.

The declining reputation of his former colleague Mane, since his move to the Middle East, has been cited as one reason for why Salah is seemingly against a move to the Saudi Pro League, in fact. “Salah doesn’t want to be like Sadio in Saudi Arabia,” says one source. “Even if it means more money.”

The low crowds, a lack of worldwide attention and the overall standard of the game in Saudi Arabia has been, by all accounts, weighed up by Salah against the financial benefits over the last year to reach a decision that he would like to stay a Liverpool player beyond the current deal, which is worth around £350,000 a week.

It’s thought that Salah earns around £1m a week when all his endorsements and commercial agreements are accounted for. Remuneration won’t be the deciding factor for his next move.

The shirtless selfies that Salah has been showcasing on his Instagram account in recent times also point towards an athlete who remains in remarkably impressive condition at the age of 32. The speed dials might have been turned down ever so slightly since the jet-heeled days of earlier in his career but the strength and conditioning exercises ensure he remains in perfect shape to make the difference when it matters most.

Signs of decline are nowhere to be found and the decision to shun the Olympic Games with Egypt in favour of a full pre-season schedule under the new regime of Arne Slot has been an inspired one. Having suffered a hamstring tear at the Africa Cup of Nations in January and enduring an unhappy and unfit end to last season as a result, the chance to rest, rehab and hit the ground running under Slot was one the right-winger simply didn’t want to pass up.

And as if to hammer home the point that he is a specimen that remains without equal further, Salah ensured he topped the club’s pre-season fitness charts, winning the Six-Minute Run (6MT) tests upon his return to the AXA Training Centre. It’s such performances that should, theoretically, convince those who make the calls that a considerable drop-off won’t be imminent at 32.

The form of Salah was singled out for praise during the second half of the 2021/22 campaign when it could have been easy for the former Roma man to have allowed the uncertainty around his long-term future to distract from the pitch.

Instead, he inspired Egypt to the Africa Cup of Nations final before helping Liverpool a domestic cup double, the Champions League final and 92 Premier League points. A second European Cup might even have been on his lengthy honours list had it not been for a genuinely great goalkeeping displays from Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois in Paris that night.

There is also a suggestion from some that Salah is now entering the phase that sees him begin to gently place pressure on the club over what happens next. How far up the chain of command the contract talks go is unclear at this stage, but it stands to reason that sums of the nature the ‘Egyptian King’ is able to command would be need to checked through by Gordon at ownership level alongside Edwards, who has essentially replaced the American as the de facto head of the club on a more day-to-day basis.

Two years ago, Salah was able to smash through Liverpool’s carefully orchestrated wage structure because of the belief and trust that was shared by FSG and the player himself to continue delivering the sorts of numbers he had done up until that point.

It was stressed the terms were under £400,000 a week but could go beyond if the Pharaohs captain was able to produce the ‘big numbers’ and the agreement was reached due to the long-standing commitment of both the player’s camp and the club themselves to find a breakthrough.

Salah is ready to do the same once more. The ball is now in Liverpool and FSG’s court.