“Salah has played them hasn’t he”.
Accompanied with laughing and winking emojis, it didn’t take Gary Neville long to ‘trigger’ Liverpool fans on Twitter when he offered his own reaction to Mohamed Salah’s new three-year contract on Saturday morning.
The Manchester United legend has been adamant in recent years that the Egyptian would soon leave the Reds, repeatedly going public with such an opinion. And that was the case back in August 2019, when also infamously declaring, on the eve of the Reds’ Premier League-winning season, that the Red Devils would win the league next before Jurgen Klopp ’s side.
“I can see it already. He [Carragher] knows, he won’t say it,” Neville insisted on Sky Sports’ The Debate programme. “ Salah will leave, he will. I can absolutely guarantee it, I can see it, you can feel it, you can smell it.”
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He also reiterated such a view last October when speaking at Sky Sports' Overlap fans' forum . "I don’t think he will stay at Liverpool for the rest of his career," he told fans. "It's my personal view. It’s always been that view but I could be wrong.
"The Premier League would be weaker if he left. I just think you look at someone like Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Kylian Mbappe, it’s not all about the money. There’s a project and there’s something they have to achieve in their lives.
"They have to play at certain clubs, they have to go and experience certain things. I think Salah’s got to experience Real Madrid, the Bernabeu - Real Madrid are going to come back, by the way.
"I know it’s not great at the moment at Barcelona and Madrid but Salah is similar to those I’ve just mentioned, I think he has to have that on his CV at the end of his career. I think he’s done an unbelievable job at Liverpool.
“I’ve just always felt he wants a Paris [Saint-Germain], a Real Madrid, a Barcelona and I think he’ll go and get it. But I might be wrong."
Eight months later and Neville has indeed been proven wrong, with Salah’s priority always being to remain at Anfield during protracted negotiations. Given the frequency of such claims, it would appear that the United legend has actually been played himself during the Egyptian’s contract saga, even if no-one could have predicted how his renewal would unfold last Friday.
After all, not even some of the club staff included in Liverpool’s delegation knew why exactly they were being flown out to Mykonos last week, such was the secrecy surrounding the 30-year-old signing a new deal.
Yet, claiming Salah would want to play for Real Madrid, a club he has the most unceremonious relationship with, a financially-stricken Barcelona or the ‘legendary’ PSG, a side only founded in 1970, over a club where he is adored and has won every major honour going is laughable. To belittle Liverpool’s standing compared to the trio is rather telling of Neville’s United bias and anti-Reds feeling.
Perhaps such claims were made more in desperate hope than expectation, and it is no surprise how quickly Neville’s narrative changed once pen was put to paper, again finding a way to paint this picture of an inferior Liverpool.
Truth be told, he should look closer to home. After all, the juxtaposition of such claims being made as United club-record signing Paul Pogba, re-signed for £93.8m back in 2016, leaves the Red Devils for Juventus on a free transfer for the second time, 37-year-old talisman Cristiano Ronaldo fails to return for pre-season training after informing Neville’s beloved club of his desire to leave after they failed to qualify for the Champions League, and CEO Richard Arnold is filmed by supporters, having met them in a pub, bemoaning how the club has “f***ing burned through (£1bn) cash” will not be lost on any onlookers.
Liverpool might have agreed to make Mohamed Salah the highest-paid player in their history on a reported £350k a week deal, which has the potential to rise to upwards of £400k a week if he continues his goalscoring returns of the past five seasons given the incentivised nature of his new deal, but they have hardly “burned through cash”. By retaining the Egyptian’s services, the club are sticking to it’s long-term strategy of ‘retrain and refresh’ to ensure continued success, with the 30-year-old taking his place alongside Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz and Fabio Carvalho in this revamped attack sporting director Julian Ward was tasked with orchestrating in 2022.
Given Salah has won the Premier League, Champions League, FIFA Club World Cup, FA Cup, League Cup and European Super Cup at Anfield since joining the Reds in the summer of 2017, scoring 156 goals and registering 58 assists from 254 appearances, he is more than deserving of such elite status at Liverpool. His contract might be incentivised, with the forward confident in his abilities to maintain the returns that would ensure maximum reward, but that is hardly ‘playing’ the club when they benefit from those very same returns in front of goal.
And in truth, United are partly to ‘blame’ for Salah being able to make such wage demands in the first place. After all, a look at the Premier League’s highest earners and it is their excessive terms to underperforming players that has skewered the going-rate.
The wantaway Ronaldo is reportedly the Premier League’s highest-earner on £510k a week, despite the fact he was clearly only a short-term signing due to his veteran years, as United were ‘played’ into making a move for the Portuguese after local-rivals Man City held talks with his representatives last summer. But at least the 37-year-old’s legendary record in the game ensures he can command such wages, unlike some of the Red Devils’ other representatives on the list.
Given how much threat he finds his goal these days, David De Gea has returned to his best form in recent seasons. But as United fought to stop the Spaniard for leaving for Real Madrid, at a time when he really wasn’t playing very well and lost his place in the Spain side as a result, he was rewarded with a £375k a week contract.
Elsewhere, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane were offered £350k and £340k a week contracts when moving to Old Trafford last summer as United handed over big money straight away rather than reward performances further down the line. The fact that both struggled big-time in their first seasons with United only heightens how ill-advised such hefty contracts were.
Meanwhile, Pogba was on £290k a week while Edinson Cavani was handed £250k a week in October 2020 when the 33-year-old was brought in on a free transfer as essentially a panic-buy, with Antony Martial, a player United are currently desperately trying to offload, said to be on the same wages. Below them, Marcus Rashford, who was also said to want to quit the club earlier this year, is reportedly on £200k a week - the same wage Salah was said to be on before signing his new contract.
If Salah has ‘played’ Liverpool, then what have this octet been doing at Old Trafford? The forward has been rewarded for his contributions at Anfield and has been granted his wish to stay with the Reds until 2025. In contrast, United have repeatedly paid such extravagant wages to lesser players for limited returns, who then want to leave the club regardless. It appears money can’t buy you love as Neville watches on in horror from his glass house
Whether Salah can maintain his high-standards throughout his latest contract remains to be seen, with the weight of such terms, which are significantly more than his team-mates’ own wages, admittedly a gamble for Liverpool. Yet it is one that club and player are confident will prove to be value for money and will help keep them at the very top of European football.
In contrast, a look at United’s own wage bill explains exactly why they continue to fall behind the Reds and repeatedly fail in the first place. Only one of the two north west giants has been played here and if the biased Neville truly can’t see that, when the Red Devils’ own CEO can, his head is dug even deeper into the sand than any of us originally realised.
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