Jamie Carragher has tipped Mohamed Salah to follow in Cristiano Ronaldo 's footsteps and prolong his career after penning a new contract with Liverpool.
The Egyptian finally ended months of speculation regarding his future by putting pen to paper on a lucrative three-year contract that will take him to June 2025. His current deal had 12 months left to run and talks had reached an impasse, with the Reds standing firm over their wage budget structure.
But after Sadio Mane left for Bayern Munich earlier this summer, Liverpool have moved to tie down the 30-year-old to a new deal which sees him become the club’s highest earner in their history on a deal worth £350,000-a-week, effectively ending any chance of him leaving this summer or the next.
That renewal means Salah will be 33 by the time his contract ends, but he has showed no signs of slowing down after finishing level with Son Heung-min for the Golden Boot with 23 goals and 11 assists last season.
Carragher believes his fitness and longevity means he can continue scoring for Liverpool for many years to come, following Ronaldo’s lead after the 37-year-old scored an impressive 24 goals last season and insisted he can continue playing past his 40th birthday.
"The way he looks after himself, I think he can be like a Cristiano Ronaldo, still getting goals in the Premier League [later in his career],” Carragher told Sky Sports. “The way Salah leads his life, I think there is a good chance over the next three years you will see no sort of drop-off in terms of his numbers.”
Have Your Say! Will Mo Salah really keep on playing until he is 37? Comment below.
Salah, who has scored 156 goals in his five seasons at the club, had flirted with a possible departure due to his contract saga, with PSG, Real Madrid and even Manchester City linked. But Carragher believes that he has cemented his status as a club legend, regardless of whether he stayed or left this summer.
"Salah is already a Liverpool legend and if he’d moved on in 12 months he’d have still been a legend,” he added. “What players like him, Alisson, [Virgil] van Dijk, [Sadio] Mane, how they’ve changed the face of Liverpool Football Club along with the manager means they will all be legends no matter when they move on for the club and for whatever reason they move on from the club.
“I think the supporters are very thankful for what these players have given. Salah will finish his time in the top five or six players ever to have played for the club. He’s certainly in Liverpool’s best-ever XI and there’s no doubt that right now he’s a Liverpool legend and hopefully he can enhance that reputation over the next three years.”
