Anfield Watch
·21 November 2024
Anfield Watch
·21 November 2024
Mo Salah’s contract situation has been well-established this season.
It is, perhaps, the biggest story surrounding Liverpool Football Club at the moment. The talismanic attacker, who is still performing at a world-leading level, is still yet to commit his future to the club beyond the end of the season.
The fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk are in the same situation takes it from disastrous to catastrophic.
As a result, Reds all around the world are hanging on Salah’s every move, trying to find any indication as to what his next move will be. His comment that it is his “last season” at Liverpool following the 3-0 demolition of Manchester United in September sent fans into a spiral, but the indication was that it was simply because contract negotiations weren’t underway then.
Reports indicate that they are now and that Salah is wanting three more years at the club, whilst Saudi Arabia are lining up a world-leading wage offer to try and entice him to any number of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) owned clubs.
Anyone in that situation would find it a difficult decision to make. Do you take the offer that would see you earn more money from playing than any other footballer in the history of the world ever has or do you stay at the club where you became one of the greatest players of all time and compete for league and Champions League titles for three more years?
It seems that Salah himself doesn’t quite know what to do. Earlier, he posted a paragraph from a book he was reading in Arabic on his Instagram story. The text itself translates into a title of “Who are the mentally ill?”, with the paragraph reading:
“Research has shown that most human decisions are based on emotional factors, not logic. Often times, we feel good about something, and we make a decision based on that, and we can’t always explain why we did it, we just feel it was a good idea at the time. ‘80% of our decisions are based on emotional convictions. 20% of our decisions are based on logical analysis.”
© IMAGO
What does that indicate about Salah’s mindset when it comes to this decision he is having to make? The paragraph suggests that making a decision based on emotional conviction is the wrong thing to do.
Yet you could argue that staying at Liverpool is an emotional decision because of his history here, but also that leaving the glory and sporting success that Liverpool could be set for over the next few years to earn in excess of Cristiano Ronaldo’s reported £167m a year is certainly based on an emotional aspect.
But being tied to a place and a people emotionally isn’t the worst thing in the world. Salah’s already a multi-millionaire, and whilst it would be once-again-lifechaning money, he would fade into relatively obscurity in the Saudi Pro League.
Make the right decision, Mo. You won’t regret it.
Live