“Did it give him a boost or whatever?” Jürgen Klopp joked during his press conference today at the mention of Al-Ittihad’s summer transfer bid for the Egyptian, which was worth around $185m (£150m/€173m). “An offer came in, you said? And then what happened? It was rejected for football reasons.”
Liverpool knew that there was no point allowing Salah to depart, not least at the very end of the transfer window. Even if the Saudi Pro League interest had come sooner in the summer, finding a replacement would have been near-impossible. “It is not important,” Klopp continued. “Mo is here. Mo never came to me and wanted to go. I didn’t think a second about it to be honest. Should we or not? Yes, he is here. He feels extremely well, you can see he is enjoying the team a lot.
“He played for the last 105 minutes. The last game he played as a nine. He is in good shape. On the pitch, goalscoring-wise everyone can see that. Off the pitch, even better shape, I would say.
“He is really positive. He enjoys the company of the boys and sees there is a lot of potential with the boys and wants to maximize that by getting something out of that. The other stuff I never thought about that, and hope I don’t have to.” It is clear — and also obvious why — that Klopp wants to keep Salah for as long as he can. As has been mentioned almost for as long as can be remembered, the attacker is not showing any signs of slowing down.
Already this season, Mohamed Salah has scored 10 goals and assisted another four, providing a goal contribution every 74 minutes on the field. For Liverpool, though, those sorts of numbers are absolutely no surprise.
