One Liverpool star ‘bet’ on Mo Salah leaving this summer. Now he’s the one to leave the Reds.
Mo Salah’s contract situation has dominated Liverpool’s season off the pitch. Alongside similar situations involving Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, of course.
But Salah’s was the one with the most doubt. Pretty much everyone expected Van Dijk to remain at Liverpool, while the expectation has long been that Alexander-Arnold is leaving for Real Madrid.
Now, the latter still hasn’t been sorted and we’ll cross our fingers for the Scouser’s change of heart. But the two more senior players have indeed committed their futures to Liverpool.
As we say, though, it wasn’t clear whether Salah would do that. He had enormous offers from Saudi Arabia, for one, while Liverpool are never happy to pay big money to players at the end of their top-flight career.
Salah, who turns 33 this summer, could easily have left Liverpool. It appears at least one of his teammates was betting on exactly that, in fact.
Federico Chiesa at Liverpool
Federico Chiesa arrived at Liverpool from Juventus at the start of the season. He was a bargain signing but one who has failed to have any impact at Anfield.
Arne Slot simply doesn’t play him. Chiesa has barely featured for 30 Premier League minutes and even with the title all but wrapped up, the Italian isn’t getting the nod.
There was a goal in the EFL Cup final, of course, but that will be the highlight of Chiesa’s Liverpool career. He looks absolutely certain to leave in the summer.
Calciomercato makes that point, saying that he could have left in January but opted to stay. That was supposedly because he ‘bet’ on the idea of Salah leaving the club, which would have opened the door to more prominence next season.
Salah, though, has shut that door and locked it. Chiesa isn’t going to find an easy way into the team and as a result, he’s destined to depart once the transfer window opens.
That won’t come as a shock to anyone paying attention but it’s still a blow. There will forever be a sense that Chiesa could have offered more to Liverpool. It wasn’t to be.
