Liverpool have two solutions, and they add up to a problem.
Their best player might be having the best season of his career. They've only dropped seven total points from 19 matches across the Premier League and the Champions League. And so that player is getting interviewed after all the matches that he's played an outsize role in helping Liverpool win.
During the postmatch chats, the player is inevitably asked some kind of question like: "Your team is in first place, you've just scored and assisted a goal in a match for the 700th time in your career, so why do you only have half-a-year left on your contract?" And then the player says something like: "We're almost in December, I haven't received any offer to stay at the club, so probably I'm more out than in."
Or, say: "Probably until now this is the last [Manchester] City game I will play for Liverpool so I was just going to enjoy it. The atmosphere was incredible so I will enjoy every second here. Hopefully we just win the league and will see what will happen."
And that's just in the last two weeks!
Mohamed Salah is on pace to shatter the Premier League record for goals+assists in a single season. Liverpool are on pace to finish the season with 95 points, which would tie for the fifth-best total in league history. And yet Salah could theoretically sign a pre-contract with another club outside of England on Jan. 1.
What might happen? What should happen? Let's take a look at the situation from three different angles: for Liverpool, for Salah, and for everyone else.
What should Liverpool do?
As I wrote in October, there's been a ton of upheaval across Liverpool's front office over the past two years, though things have since settled back down. After stepping down in 2022, Michael Edwards has returned as CEO of football for the club's ownership group, Fenway Sports Group (FSG). He hired Richard Hughes to fill his old role as director of football at Liverpool. And the guy who initially replaced Edwards, Julian Ward, has also returned as the club's technical director.
But over the past two years, FSG considered selling the club, Ward resigned months after replacing Edwards, former manager Jürgen Klopp seemed to fill the decision-making void despite having no front-office experience, and then Jorg Schmadtke was hired to be the club's temporary director of football for a year. There wasn't really anyone in a long-term role who was overseeing the long-term situation for the squad. So, the club's three most important players -- Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Virgil van Dijk -- have all entered the final year of contracts that were signed back when Edwards was still the director of football.
Alexander-Arnold's decision, seemingly, will come down to whether or not he wants to take less money to stay at Liverpool, or accept a massive raise to join Real Madrid who, sources have told ESPN, are interested in him. Van Dijk is the club captain, he plays a position that has a kinder aging curve, and there's no one on this roster who can come close to replacing what he does. So, the situations for those two players aren't quite as complicated as they are for Salah.
Gab Marcotti believes Liverpool are growing in confidence that Mohamed Salah will sign a new contract with the club.
Research I've written about has found that players who are both skilled and athletic age better than players who are skilled, who age better than players who are athletic. While you might've described him as more athletic than skilled earlier in his career, Salah has developed into one of the best passers in the world over the past few seasons. He absolutely falls into the skilled-and-athletic camp.
But the fact is that players usually get worse as they age. If you look at all of the minutes played by Premier League forwards since the 2008-09 season, the number rises with age-year -- starting at 17 -- but peaks at 26: 260,954 minutes. Then it declines all the way through age 37. There are massive drop-offs when you go from 29 to 30 -- 198,949 to 143,991 -- and then from 32 to 33: 116,536 to 70,002. Salah survived the 29 to 30 cliff, but he's about to hit the 32-to-33 cliff.
To re-sign Salah, Liverpool would have to take the risk that they'd be paying him like one of the best players in the world -- right when he stops being one of the best players in the world. But Salah is an outlier already, so perhaps it makes sense to compare him to the other players of his age and level -- rather than the general Premier League population.
Through 14 Premier League games, the 32-year-old Egypt star is averaging 1.25 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes. Across the database from the site FBref, which has different cut-offs for each league, there have been 13 different instances in Europe's Big Five leagues where a player who was at least 32 years old at the start of the season played at least 2,000 league minutes and averaged at least 0.9 non-penalty goals+assists per 90.
Here's the list:
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 33 years old for PSG in 2015-16: 1.7 npG+A/90
- Lionel Messi, 32, Barcelona, 2019-20: 1.3
- Lionel Messi, 33, Barcelona, 2020-21: 1.1
- Karim Benzema, 33, Real Madrid, 2021-22: 1.1
- Cristiano Ronaldo, 32, Real Madrid, 2017-18: 1.1
- Robert Lewandowski, 32, Bayern Munich, 2021-22: 1.0
- Karim Benzema, 32, Real Madrid, 2020-21: 1.0
- Lionel Messi, 35, PSG, 2022-23: 1.0
- Roberto Baggio, 36, Brescia, 2003-04: 1.0
- Antonio Di Natale, 32, Udinese, 2010-11: 0.9
- Robert Lewandowski, 33, Bayern Munich, 2022-23: 0.9
- Claudio Pizarro, 32, Werder Bremen, 2011-12: 0.9
- Teddy Sheringham, 34, Manchester United, 2000-01: 0.9
The following season, the players who remained in the Big Five leagues averaged 0.87 goals+assists per 90 minutes and averaged 2,388 minutes of domestic-league gametime. That's still, on average, elite attacking production and 26.5 full-90s worth of matches. So while we would expect most players at these ages to decline, these players do decline a little bit, though they're coming from such a high level that their production is still well ahead of most other players in the world.
However, we're ignoring two players here. Messi moved to MLS after his 2022-23 season with PSG, and Roberto Baggio retired after his legendary age-36 season with Brescia. I'm not exactly sure how to work those situations into this kind of projection, but we should still probably downgrade the averages slightly. Even with that, though, we're still left with elite-level expected production next year.
Interestingly, though, more than half of the players on this list ended up changing teams after the season ended. Zlatan moved to Manchester United. Messi moved to PSG after the 2020-21 season and then Inter Miami CF after 2022-23. Ronaldo transferred to Juventus, Baggio retired, Lewandowski moved to Barcelona in the summer of 2023, Pizarro moved to Bayern in the summer of 2012, and Sheringham returned to Tottenham Hotspur in 2001.
The only players who didn't switch clubs immediately after these age-defying seasons were Messi at Barcelona, Benzema at Real Madrid, Lewandowski at Bayern Munich, and Di Natale at Udinese. These are all club legends who spent at least eight seasons with their clubs, and Salah is currently in his eighth season with Liverpool.
Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens disagree over the current contract standoff between Liverpool and Mohamed Salah.
Since it's unlikely that Liverpool will sign Salah just for next season, what about the second year after the seasons mentioned above? How do these players fare two seasons after their elite 32-or-older campaigns?
In addition to Baggio and Messi, Benzema gets eliminated from this group since he moved to Saudi Arabia a year after his Ballon d'Or-winning 2021-22 season. So, we're left with 10 seasons where these players were still playing in a Big Five league two years later.
One of them is happening right now, Lewandowski with Barcelona. We're eliminating him from the aggregate because we still need to see how many minutes he plays from here on out, but the early returns are quite good: 1.09 G+A through 1,321 minutes.
Among the other nine, the players averaged 0.78 G+A per 90 minutes and played an average of 2,052 minutes. That's a sizable decline from the year prior, but it's still a good amount of gametime with very good goal production. For context, just 18 players across Europe's Big Five leagues last season played at least 2,000 league minutes and accounted for at least 0.75 G+A per 90 minutes. Basically, that kind of production means you're good enough to start for one of the six best teams in the world (since most clubs play with three attackers.)
Given how rarely Salah gets injured, how there is a trend more recently of older players in all sports maintaining excellence deep into their careers, and just how ridiculously good he's been so far this season, I don't think you'd be wrong to expect Salah to perform slightly better than these aggregates we've looked at thus far.
Plus, it's going to cost a ton of money to find someone to replace Salah from the open market. For as good as Liverpool are at player identification, there's very little chance they're able to scoop up another $40 million player and see him turn into a Ballon d'Or candidate -- which is what happened with Salah.
So, were I running the club, I'd be inclined to look at all of this recent history, pair it with the current downturn Manchester City and some of Europe's other big clubs are going through, and re-sign Salah. The other option, after all, doesn't involve a massive transfer fee in return; it involves just letting him walk for nothing.
The ideal, from a team perspective, would be something like a two-year deal (since we've got some evidence that he'll remain productive), but maybe you have to add on some kind of third-year option to get Salah to commit.
What should Salah -- and the rest of the world -- do?
While I do think there are a bunch of Liverpool-specific factors that led to their three true superstars all heading toward the open market, there's also just been a larger trend toward star players running down their contracts and playing other clubs against each other to win even bigger salary increases. See: Mbappé, Kylian.
In terms of negotiating the best situation for himself, you can't really do much better than this. Salah is heading toward a situation where other big clubs outside of England will be able to make offers. He's putting pressure on the team with his public comments and most importantly, he's been on absolute fire so far this season. My assumption is that most Liverpool fans -- and most soccer fans, in general -- see it as an absolute no-brainer for the club to re-sign him.
I can't speak to questions of legacy and all of that; it's his career, he won't be at the top of the game for much longer, and he should do whatever the heck he wants over these final few seasons. However, I can speak to what his options might be.
While the salaries are general estimates, the data at FBref is the best we have available. According to the site, Salah is making $23.6m this season. Per this data, he's on the same wages as Manchester United's Casemiro (which tells you everything you need to know about both clubs.) And he's only making less money than Juventus's Dusan Vlahovic, Real Madrid's David Alaba, Manchester City's Erling Haaland, Bayern Munich's Harry Kane, Real Madrid's Mbappé, and Barcelona's Lewandowski.
The other teams who are paying at least one player $20m or more per season: Atlético Madrid (Jan Oblak) and PSG (Ousmane Dembélé and Lucas Hernández).
That would leave us with a list of nine teams who could afford Salah's salary: both Manchester clubs, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Juventus, Atlético Madrid, and PSG.
I could be wrong, but I would be shocked if he moved to another club in England, so both United and City are out. Given that England is home to six of the 10 richest teams in the world, this does simplify things a bit.
On the continent, I'm not sure that a fourth winger would solve any of Real Madrid's problems, plus there does seem to be some lingering resentment from Salah over what happened with Sergio Ramos in the 2018 Champions League final. Both Juventus and Atlético Madrid seem like significant steps down in quality from Liverpool. Bayern Munich might be scared off by what happened with the Sadio Mané signing, and they paid good money for Michael Olise, who plays the same position as Salah, last summer.
Barcelona could have a Lewandowski-sized hole in their front three, as his contract expires at the end of this season. But the Salah-sized hole in their front three is already being filled by Lamine Yamal, a fellow left-footed right winger who is already one of the best players in the world and is [checks notes] 15 years younger than Salah. Maybe Barcelona can figure out a way to make it work with a fluid Yamal, Raphinha, and Salah front three. It could happen, but doesn't feel particularly likely.
The most likely suitor, then, would be PSG. They've revamped the squad and rebuilt the team around younger and typically more French players. The problem, though, is that they're arguably the richest team in the world and they suddenly have no superstars.
Salah would immediately solve that problem. He's the front-runner for the Ballon d'Or, and I'm sure ownership would view that as a coup, especially after the departure of Mbappé. Although Salah generally plays on the wing and PSG already have lots of young wing talent, he would likely solve their biggest issue: they don't have a go-to goal-scorer.
While Bradley Barcola has been fantastic in Ligue 1 with 10 goals, he's really struggled in the Champions League, where he's attempted only six shots across five matches. Salah all but guarantees you at least a goal every other game, plus plenty of assist production to go on top of it. He's not a true center-forward, but PSG boss Luis Enrique has plenty of experience figuring out how to get around that problem.
Two weeks ago, sources told ESPN's Julien Laurens that PSG have made multiple attempts to sign Salah in the past and would once again be interested this summer. With Mbappé's salary off the books and the team in need of a new superstar, PSG could easily make Salah the highest-paid player in the world. And unlike most other clubs, their sovereign-wealth-funding can easily afford a couple seasons where they're paying Salah like a superstar and he's not producing like one. They'd give him a significant pay raise. They're not one of Liverpool's continental rivals, and they'd still give him the opportunity to compete for Champions League titles.
While there's always the potential interest from Saudi Arabia, which we heard about two summers ago but not this year, PSG might be the only club likely to offer Salah a better deal than whatever Liverpool might offer him -- if they even decide to offer him one. So, despite what you hear after nearly every game at this point, there's still a very real chance that Salah is playing for Liverpool at this time next year. Plus, if they re-sign him, he could still leave eventually. And in that scenario, he'd still get a pay raise and Liverpool would get a transfer fee from that theoretical, eventual move. That seems like the best way to keep everyone happy.
But until then, you better get used to it. Salah is going to keep scoring, Liverpool are going to keep winning, and someone is going to ask him why no one has figured out a way to make sure both things keep happening again next season.