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The Mo Contract Saga

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It’s widely reported we have this wage structure and players get massive bonuses. That would’ve been the starting point to any negotiations. Imagine finding out a matter of months later that Mo, as brilliant as he is, gets treated differently. They would be absolutely livid. You would be if it happened to you at work.

This also might be why we wait 6 months to Christmas until we agree the new deal, eases that outrage.
 
It's very easy to throw around imaginary cash I don't have, but £300k isn't unreasonable at all considering how many others in the league are earning the same.
Or about 3% of our turnover before bonuses. Which is madness.
 
Most work places always have allowances for a special person.
I would suggest if Mo does get beyond the wage structure and you are going into contract negotiations and want to use Mo as an example then you better be prepared to justify that, there is really no one the current team whom can demand or justify themselves as Mo can so don't really see why shouldn't make this one off special allowance. Whom else in the team over the next 2yrs can really go into Klopp's office and say I'm worth as much as Mo, so come on and pay me?

The positive is Mo has given us first option to spend the rest of his career at LFC, to be honest I didn't see that happening and thought he would have move on by now so that shows he feels happy and wants to stay. It's Mo's one last big contract, he has every right to ask what he feels he is worth.

Clubs are coming out of Pandemic and a few of the big clubs next season are going to be prepared to huge money with budgets free to spend more including Real, PSG, Juve and City. Best not to assume covid financial prudence is always going to be around forever and no one over the next year will have they money prise Mo away as we had been able to last 2yrs.
As a club, I can understand if we can't afford what Mo wants but that's a different issue but hopefully we as a club are honest and professional about it and not label Mo as greedy or asking too much because both are not true and rather beyond LFC.
It’s not beyond the realms of possibilities that Trent will do just that. He’s smashing records for his position and will be the poster boy for the club for the next decade. Future captain.

Ali could be another one. His job is equal to Mo. The drop off after him is phenomenal. But we all know a keeper isn’t going to get that kind of money.

It is a huge positive we are first choice. Huge intact and as you’ve alluded to, coming out of the pandemic may release more money to revisit the wage structure. That’ll bring its own issues when we sign someone new. If we do buy a ready made star, they’ll want parity with Salah.

It may be worth giving him this contract if we plan on selling him in 2 years. No doubt that current outlay would pay dividends.
 
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The extraordinary talent of Mohamed Salah and how to quantify it
Liverpool’s Klopp era successes have relied on their Egyptian star and the club must decide how much they want to keep him

by Barney Ronay


There were 76 minutes gone at Anfield as Mohamed Salah took a pass from Curtis Jones near the right touchline. Three blue shirts loomed close by. Salah was facing the crowd. Shortly before Manchester City had levelled the score at 1-1, and could claim, on the metrics, to have dominated the game to that point: more shots, passes, crosses and dribbles, albeit without seeming to have any preferred method of actually putting the ball in the Liverpool goal.

Through all of that there was a familiar sense of one player in red operating under a different gravity. Salah does this. Shane Warne famously damned Monty Panesar with the comment that he hadn’t played 33 Test Matches, but the same Test 33 times. The same could be said of Salah, who has effectively played the same game for Liverpool 212 times. Except happily, in Salah’s case, it is an astonishingly good game.

Sunday afternoon was already significant in other ways. This week marks the six-year anniversary of Jürgen Klopp’s appointment as Liverpool manager. There is an air of familial permanence about Klopp these days. By the turn of the year he will have outlasted every postwar Liverpool manager bar Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly, fitting company for a man who has performed a remarkable twin feat of modernising the present while still tending to the past.

Success, wider attachments, the Covid experience have all created an indissoluble bond. Klopp seems less angsty on his clothesline these days, more weathered, more thickly-bearded, and an agreeably nautical presence in his overalls, steering that seasoned title-winning crew on instinct and ship’s biscuits.

Way out on the far side from his manager during that passage on Sunday, Salah’s first act was to bounce away from João Cancelo, who came sniping in to steal the ball early, perhaps already thinking about counterattack. This is an overlooked Salah strength: his strength. Dribblers have to be brave in the Premier League, ready to be bumped and hacked down. Salah is 5ft 9in. He went through last season without being booked but doesn’t often lose these collisions.

The contact helped him. Salah was turned now and facing the City goal. At which point he did something wild, rolling his foot over the ball then skipping past Bernardo Silva, one of those moments of rare physical creativity that can seem so carefree in these condensed professional spaces.

There were still four blue shirts between Salah and the City goal, but he was moving now. In the stands the air had begun to crackle with the sense of something about to happen, like the static before a lightning strike.

Salah will be 30 next summer. He has two years left on his Liverpool contract, which is currently under review. He has nine goals and three assists this season. He has 135 goals and 43 assists in 212 Liverpool appearances. He has two Premier League golden boots and the best goals per game ratio of any postwar Liverpool player. He always plays and he nearly always scores.

Salah’s representatives are said to be asking for wage parity with City’s star midfielders. Kevin De Bruyne earns £380,000 a week, Jack Grealish £300,000. Salah, the razor edge in a title winning team, is on a mere £200,000. Liverpool’s top earner, Virgil van Dijk is at £220,000.

The sums may be ludicrous in isolation. But talent has a market. And sportspeople, even mild, likable inside forwards who pant about the pitch like a thirsty spaniel, are insanely driven people.

Liverpool have a choice to make. Either confirm the authority of the business plan, the rigidity of the wage structure. Or keep Salah at the club and take the hit. Lurking over this is the spectre of wage acceleration, of the collapse of Barcelona, the question of Salah’s age and presumed decline over the next few years.

But there are other kinds of logic too. Salah is, lest we forget, a phenomenon and an outlier. More than any other on-field part, he is the basic magic dust in those six years of Klopp. This is in many ways a co-era: the age of Salah.

It is hard to think of other players who have had such an obviously transformative effect. Alex Ferguson had Eric Cantona. Yaya Touré’s arrival shifted City from a hopeful project into a culture of relentless success. Salah’s first season was Klopp’s third at Anfield. Liverpool had improved from eight to fourth in that time. At which point: ignition.

In Salah’s first year they scored 135 goals and reached the Champions League final. In his second Liverpool hoovered up 97 points and were champions of Europe. In his third they won the league. In his fourth they collapsed in mid-season. No matter. Salah still scored 31 goals. They ended up safe in third. There has been an urge in the last few days to suggest Salah has been underappreciated through all this, to inject a little tribal grievance into his brilliance. There is no need. Those who watch know how good he is.

That sense of display, of something celebratory in his basic presence was there as Salah entered the City area, feet battering the turf, crowd already rising to its feet. Aymeric Laporte went to, “show” Salah on to his right side, angling his body that way. Salah feinted left, then took the route offered, springing off his standing foot and leaving Laporte pirouetting unhappily, like a man being spun around in his office swivel chair.

Salah had taken four City defenders out of the game in the space of five seconds, nine touches and 20 yards Anfield grass. Suddenly Ederson was the only remaining obstacle as he approached the angle of the six-yard box the ball falling into his stride as took two quick balancing steps.

What do you do with this kind of talent, with the feelings it generates? How do you quantify it?

Klopp’s scouts had nagged him endlessly about Salah before Liverpool signed him. But even in those first few months at Anfield Salah’s extra levels came as a surprise. That initial scoring run was treated as a bonus, something that must, naturally, come to an end. It hasn’t. It’s still going on.

The shot was hit with such power it simply flew past Ederson, even at grabbable height. Salah had just surged past four players at the tail end of the game, but he still had the flex and twang and torque to hit the ball with unstoppable force on his weaker foot.

Liverpool’s contract model has built into it the assumption that footballers will tail off past the age of 30, that you risk being left with a high earner in decline. Why should this rule apply to Salah?

He is in fearsomely good shape. He lives an exemplary athlete’s life. Footballers generally are remaining in peak condition for longer. Salah’s acceleration is a fine weapon, but his finishing, his technical levels, his shooting, his eye for space are also thrillingly high grade.

For now Salah remains so productive – home, away, league, cup, whatever – you wonder if he might create a referred problem. This Liverpool team is also defined by sweating the asset, by polishing the cracks and letting parts of the squad grow thin. For four years Salah’s goals, his basic relentlessness have made these plans work, keeping the ship on course even when you’ve sailed close to the wind.

This is still is a team in a state of fine balance. Net transfer spend is close to zero since the splurge three years ago. But Liverpool haven’t lost since Real Madrid away at the start of April. They have four trophies to play for. This well-seasoned crew can chase that glory without pressure or fear as we enter year seven of the age of Klopp.

Salah remains the catalyst. If Liverpool’s owners have any sense of this game, of its delicate energies, they will do everything they can to keep a player whose presence has defined not just an era of success, the lifting of a cloud, and a returning happiness; but also the wondrous returns on their own financial investment.
 



Not liking the sound of that. Salah and his agent have every reason to believe he is paid well below his market value and the financial incentives of a move to a club like PSG (who will lose Mbappe next year) will be huge. There is no reason for FSG to drag on the negotiations unless their strategy is to do another “Wijnaldum” but this time with one of the best players in the history of the club.
 
Am I right in thinking Mane and Firmino's contracts are both up in 2023 as well?

Salah is straightforward if you buy into the argument that he'll be able to maintain this form for another 3-4 years.

Firmino hasn't really done much to justify an extension - if anything his form has cautioned against it.

Mane remains the biggest question mark.

We are in a really delicate position made worse by the lack of investment over recent years. There is no real succession plan in place where we can feel comfortable about letting these guys go but it's a massive risk signing up a load of players into their mid-30s on huge contracts.

I agree that we are seeing players extend their careers at the top level into their 30s more and more but I'm still 100% not convinced the Premiership is the best league for them to do it in.

I can't help but worry we're heading for an Arsenal style slide down the table once Klopp leaves.
 
What I don’t get is the hesitance to sign a long contract say, five years, with a player like him. If he produces for three years at current levels, he can be sold at 33 to one of the big players who play in easier leagues. There will be a market for him. If he starts to whine down a little, that seem market still exists and will still get a good fee for him if not astronomical.

Does the club really think that he would stay here for five years and stagnate just to collect his wages if his form starts to decline? I don’t think he’s that type of person or player.
 
So FSG spend the square root of fuck all in the transfer market, tell us that all the money is going towards extending contracts, and it turns out that they're not even that interested in extending contracts unless the said contracts are cheap.

At some point, you just have to call out their bullshit.

Pay the man. Fuck all this spin about him being 'greedy'.
 
What I don’t get is the hesitance to sign a long contract say, five years, with a player like him. If he produces for three years at current levels, he can be sold at 33 to one of the big players who play in easier leagues. There will be a market for him. If he starts to whine down a little, that seem market still exists and will still get a good fee for him if not astronomical.

Does the club really think that he would stay here for five years and stagnate just to collect his wages if his form starts to decline? I don’t think he’s that type of person or player.

I'm not convinced that market does exist. Ronaldo is an outlier.

If we have a player at 32-33 who is obviously declining on huge wages we'll have to give him away. Most likely with a big pay off.
 
So FSG spend the square root of fuck all in the transfer market, tell us that all the money is going towards extending contracts, and it turns out that they're not even that interested in extending contracts unless the said contracts are cheap.

At some point, you just have to call out their bullshit.

Pay the man. Fuck all this spin about him being 'greedy'.
These contracts are hardly cheap!
 
Perhaps because we've been here before, contracts winding down, then sold with a year left to go.
And perhaps it's not that at all. All the FSG denigration isn't a query, it's as if it's fact. We don't know what the situation is but that doesn't stop people running around with their hands in the air shouting the sky is falling!
 
What if @Beamrider ’s selling up theory is true. The club looks more valuable on paper right now than after giving Salah a monster contract.
 
What if @Beamrider ’s selling up theory is true. The club looks more valuable on paper right now than after giving Salah a monster contract.

Surely a club with Salah signed up and winning the league or runners up season after season is more valuable to any prospective buyers?
Not sure I see a big deal with Salah’s contract it’s not like he’s asking something beyond his worth.
 
What if @Beamrider ’s selling up theory is true. The club looks more valuable on paper right now than after giving Salah a monster contract.
If they want to conclude a sale then they should get Salah’s contract sorted ASAP. Without him on board, it would be like trying to sell Microsoft with a big question mark hanging over Office. And my theory on sale was that they’d want to do it by the end of the calendar year for tax reasons, but there don’t seem to have been many rumours so I may be wrong.
If they do end up over-paying for him (in the eyes of a buyer) then it won’t knock a huge amount off the value of the club, just the amount by which the buyer thinks they are over-paying. And if they are in talks with buyers, there’ll probably have been discussions about it - if a sale were imminent the buyer might just tell them to leave if for them to sort out.
I think the wider issue for the club, and for all clubs (except the oil clubs), re wages is that they have historically been pushed up alongside (tracking slightly behind) the growth in media deals, but media growth has slowed (hence the push for the Superleague). Most clubs don’t make much of an accounting profit, despite the massive media income, and that’s because any profit usually goes back into the squad, with the players and their agents creaming off all the extra money, sooner or later. Our strategy of investing in infrastructure, rather than the squad, is actually quite disruptive as the cash-flow patterns from doing limited transfer deals are massively different to the norm.
Expect to see a real push on commercial deals to meet the income gap, otherwise clubs have the choice of taking huge risks on wages (and possibly going bust) or there’ll be an increasing gap between the oil clubs and everyone else.
I expect there’ll be a squeeze on commercial coming down the line as well. Gambling (and fringe equivalent stuff like forex trading) is a huge driver of football sponsorship and the game is slowly coming around to the idea that clubs pushing betting is not a good place to be. A lot of clubs will be very vulnerable to a full/partial ban on betting sponsors (which is why I don’t think a full ban will happen, but I could see a ban on shirt sponsorships by betting companies). And if those firms start getting negative PR for their association with football then the value of those deals will go down.
 
Salah will agree a new contract, and I wouldnt be surprised if he retires a Liverpool player.
 
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