As the 2024/25 Premier League season kicks off, Mohamed Salah’s future at Liverpool is once again in the spotlight, with his contract set to expire next summer. Two years ago, in a similar situation, the 32-year-old forward secured a record-breaking deal, making him the highest-paid player in the club’s history.
However, when Salah last faced contract negotiations, Dr. Ian Graham, then Liverpool’s director of research, had anticipated that it might be the right moment for the club to consider moving on from their star player.
“It goes unsaid most of the time but a precursor to recruitment, before you think about signing players, or selling players, you’ve got to understand the strength of your squads,” Graham revealed in an exclusive interview with the ECHO.
“When contracts are expiring, whether to renew a player’s contract or consider transferring the player. And so that squad planning was something we paid a lot of attention to.
“It typically comes two or three years into a contract, if a player’s been playing very well, you have to decide to renew a contract or consider a transfer for the player.
“If the players are young and playing well, of course we want to keep them. As players get older, the equation you’ve got to solve is do we want to keep two years of super performance and pay the wages that go along with that super performance and recognise that the player might be 33 or 34 at the end of that extended contract, and would be unlikely to realise the transfer fee correct.
“Or do we say this is our last best chance to take a transfer fee on that player? Do we take that fee and try to reinvest it in the squad?
“When you’ve got generational talents like (Virgil) Van Dijk and Salah, it’s very, very difficult to say, okay, we’re going to take a transfer fee and reinvest it in the squad.
“Some of the last work I did (for Liverpool) was about Salah’s longevity. How long can he keep producing for?
