Nothing escapes TikTok. Pep Guardiola’s pinning of Mo Salah to the Etihad walls with gushing smiles and admiration after his match-winning display for Liverpool against Manchester City might be cheekily interpreted as a “we’ll have you if they won’t” moment.
Salah’s future at Liverpool remains undecided despite the avalanche of stats piling up in his favour. Salah added a slew of firsts at the Etihad, including an opening goal that took his tally for the season to 30 in all competitions. His assists hit 21 with the pass converted by Dominik Szoboszlai. No player has ever registered 25 goals and 15 assists in the Premier League, and March is not yet upon us.
On days like Sunday, watching Salah torment City, you could easily convince yourself that a 22-year-old was running amok not a man of 32. This non-drinking phenom with the body fat percentage of a flyweight boxer has learned to pick his moments with such refinement that his manager, Arne Slot, reflects “nothing seems hard for Mo Salah at the moment”.
There is not a Liverpool fan on this earth who would deny Salah the contract he wants because there is not a player, not Steven Gerrard, not Luis Suarez, not Robbie Fowler, not Kenny Dalglish, not Ian Rush, not Roger Hunt, not Ian St John, not Billy Liddell, who has been loved more than the Egyptian King. “Mo Salah! Mo Salah! Running down the wing.”
However, it is not the job of Liverpool’s owners to sing their love and devotion for an all-time great. Precisely the opposite in fact. The Anfield moneyballers are charged with stripping out emotion from the calculations, of weighing the evidence in support of longevity in the Premier League. The numbers aren’t great. Well not on Salah’s wages.
Kevin De Bruyne is only one year older than Salah. He too is in the final year of a contract at City. When De Bruyne was lifting the Champions League trophy in the summer of 2023 a fortnight before his 32nd birthday, few saw a rate of decline that would leave him unusable in the eyes of Guardiola for a vital Champions League fixture against Real Madrid just 20 months later.
Salah is in his eighth season at Anfield. He has made almost 400 appearances, that’s an average of 40 games a season. The bloke barely misses a match. Throw in the combined 250-plus games in all competitions he notched at Al Mokawloon, Basel, Chelsea, Fiorentina and Roma since 2010 and that’s a lot of football.
Whilst his injury record is remarkable, he is increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of age and 15 years a pro. No-one can run forever. De Bruyne, the legs and beating heart of City for a decade, is at the point of exhaustion, effectively running himself out of Guardiola’s plans.
Salah has become adept with his use of the throttle. There is an economy of movement now, the explosive bursts of acceleration, the bits that make the difference, deployed more sparingly, if still to devastating effect. It’s all a calculation. Salah wants the maximum he can get, the Fenway group value for the outlay.
It was ever thus, but in this phase of football’s evolution the calculation has become less intuitive. Liverpool’s fiscal policy is not vulnerable to hot flushes or swoons.
The calculus is the calculus, it measures rates of change. Though Salah is an exceptional physical specimen, the broad sweep of evidence pertaining to 33-year-old footballers, for that is what Salah will be in the summer, in the most physically demanding league in the world is out there and it’s not favourable on the terms he is demanding.
Performances like Salah’s on Sunday, in matches of greatest significance, and in the midst of a record-setting season, make the decision a slam dunk for fans. But the analysts in Liverpool’s technical department are employees not supporters, they deal in fact not fantasy.
If impressions were a part of the equation who is to say the labours of the diminished De Bruyne might not be as persuasive as the indefatigable bursts of Salah? Were Salah 22 as opposed to 32, it would not matter.
It will come down to hard cash in the end. Moneyball is all about sourcing undervalued nuggets like Salah circa 2017, not the wealth generation of superstars like Salah 2025.
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