With Liverpool now having been knocked out of the Champions League and the domestic cups, and the Premier League title being not far off confirmed, there is going to need to be news before long on the futures of Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold. It can’t be delayed for much longer.
Each can put forward their own argument for being the most important to extend terms with, though there has been no movement yet on any front amid ongoing talks. But this week, Liverpool saw a glimpse of what things might look like — in a way — if that remains the case beyond the summer. Alexander-Arnold was missed at Wembley, while Salah has suddenly been stifled.
Tino Livramento defended well against the Egyptian as Newcastle United won the Carabao Cup, but Salah just never found his way into the game. For the second successive match, he was unable to provide a spark out of nowhere — and no one else stepped up to bail him out.
Luis Diaz (with 13 goals this season) has never been particularly prolific and Diogo Jota (eight) and Darwin Nunez (seven) have scored just 15 times between them this year. Cody Gakpo has added a respectable 16 strikes but that pales into insigificance compared to Salah — 51 per cent of Liverpool’s goals this season have been scored by him.
It is not just that Salah scores, either. He has 32 goals and 22 assists this season in all competitions and has become a complete attacker, more rounded than ever before. The Liverpool attack is built around him, and justifiably so.
To take just one example, Liverpool would have dropped at least two points against lowly Southampton this season were it not for Salah’s late heroics at St Mary’s. More often than not, the Egyptian has been the man to step up when required, even if that has sometimes been from the penalty spot.
It is pointless working out where Liverpool would be in the Premier League table without Salah’s goals and assists given that it is impossible for any team to play a whole season with only 10 men. It is no exaggeration, though, to say that Arne Slot would not be heading for a league title at the first time of asking had Salah left last summer.
All of that is reason enough to tie the 32-year-old down to a new contract, which is still yet to be sorted out with the clock ticking louder and louder. But there is an even bigger factor that has to be considered: the fact that Salah is so far ahead of his club peers when it comes to impact in front of goal.
Suggesting that the matches with PSG and Newcastle are further evidence that he should get a new contract might sound strange, but in fact, without him firing, Liverpool scored once in the 210 minutes of its last two games. If this is what life looks like without Salah — the evidence of the season as a whole far outweighing the last few days in terms of his true value — then Liverpool simply cannot countenance it.
In the Premier League, for instance, Salah has 27 goals — three times the next player on the list (Diaz, with nine). No other Liverpool player has hit double figures yet.
It is already a non-negotiable that Liverpool signs a new number nine when the season comes to a close and there is a strong case growing for adding another forward alongside them too. Even then, though, the Reds cannot afford to lose such a big proportion of their goals from this season with Salah almost a one-man attack at times.
Identifying reliable goal threats for reasonable sums of money and who won’t cost the earth in wages is hard enough. Doing that on top of replacing Salah would be impossible. The current impasse can only end one way.