It feels like things are starting to come to a head down Anfield Road. Contractual concerns have descended on Liverpool’s season like a brooding cloud, and time is now running out.
Admittedly, such issues have failed to disrupt the brilliant football being played by Arne Slot’s men, who are four points clear at the top of the Premier League with a game in hand, also first-placed in the Champions League and awaiting a Carabao Cup last-eight tie against Southampton.
It’s all rather exciting, not least because this is starting to look like a campaign that, at the very least, presents an incredible opportunity to win the biggest silver prizes.
But skipper Virgil van Dijk can talk to suitors from overseas in just three weeks; as can Liverpool’s homegrown vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold.
And so can Mohamed Salah, whose own contract, set to expire at the end of the season, has attracted the most noise. He’s been vocal, but recent reports suggest that all is not lost on this pivotal front.
Mohamed Salah's contract update
When David Ornstein speaks, the Premier League’s legion of fans listen. The Athletic correspondent has recently revealed that FSG are accelerating talks to extend the stay of, perhaps, Liverpool’s three biggest superstars.
By the time he is enjoying pre-season ahead of the 2025/26 campaign, the Egpyt star will be 33. There is an understandable hesitance on FSG’s part.
But Salah’s astounding potency simply cannot be overlooked. Having played 21 matches this term, the right winger has scored 15 goals and added 12 more assists. It’s Ballon d’Or-winning form, to be sure.
1.
Mohamed Salah
£350k-per-week
2.
Virgil van Dijk
£220k-per-week
3.
Trent Alexander-Arnold
£180k-per-week
4.
Andy Robertson
£160k-per-week
5.
Alisson Becker
£150k-per-week
5=
Alexis Mac Allister
£150k-per-week
5=
Ryan Gravenberch
£150k-per-week
5=
Federico Chiesa
£150k-per-week
Liverpool need to accept that Salah leaving is a possibility. Should that unthinkable scenario become a reality, a prize-winning replacement will need to be brought in.
Liverpool eyeing Salah replacement
According to Caught Offside, Liverpool are thick in the battle for Juventus prodigy Kenan Yildiz, who the Serie A side would consider selling for a mammoth €80m (£69m) figure.
Yildiz, aged 19, has been among the finest breakout stats in Italy over recent years, with Liverpool joined by Manchester United, Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund in sending scouts to watch him in action.
A versatile forward, Yildiz would be a worthy successor for a superstar like Salah, albeit one who would need time and patience to give rise to the height of his potential powers.
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Why Kenan Yildiz could be a star at Liverpool
Yildiz might still be a teenager but he’s already earned a range of experience in Italy’s top flight, racking up nine goal contributions from 42 matches since leaving Bayern Munich’s youth set-up for Juventus.
Though he more frequently cuts inside from the left wing, Yildiz has been said to be “almost perfectly two-footed” by talent scout Jacek Kulig, and it might be that as he develops, the young Turk becomes Slot’s starring focal frontman.
Although this is a player with the quality to replace Salah, he may actually assume the positional role of someone like Darwin Nunez, whose continual struggles for goals suggest that he won’t be the star number nine over the coming years.
But then again, the Turkey international isn’t someone who exists solely to score goals himself; instead, he brings a multi-dimensional technical arsenal that suggests he will become one of the silkiest and most dynamic forwards in Europe, should he continue to place sufficient blocks for his development.
As per FBref, the nifty teenager ranks among the top 7% of forwards across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for pass completion, the top 6% for passes attempted and progressive passes, the top 13% for shot-creating actions, the top 3% for progressive carries and successful take-ons and the top 1% for tackles per 90.
A successful take-on is recorded when a player beats their opponent by directly carrying the ball past them while retaining possession.
This is quite a lot of data to consume, but succinctly, it reveals a many-layered approach to Yildiz’s craft that is coated in natural-born prolificness.
Indeed, the up-and-coming talent has notched five goal contributions from just 11 starts in the Serie A this season, while also averaging 1.1 key passes, 1.6 dribbles and 5.0 successful duels per game, as per Sofascore.
It’s been such an exciting rise that Yildiz has even been compared against players of the highest calibre.
The Turkish native’s former coach, Sokyan Baskar, has actually claimed that his protegee is “more talented than Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Whether that is actually the case is dubious, but it does make for an interesting comment on the player’s capacity for success at the very highest level of the game.
And anyway, a natural liking for a header perhaps suggests that the 6 foot 2 ace is endowed with some of the athletic qualities that have shaped CR7 into one of the greatest sporting figures of his generation through a long and storied career.
Salah may well pen an extension to his lucrative Anfield deal, but the plain fact is that the 32-year-old will skid onto a downward curve at some point, and it would be prudent to land a young gun with the qualities to take his mantle.
Yildiz wouldn’t be expected to hit the same staggering heights from the offing, but he could find great success in learning from one of the greatest Premier League players to do it, before stepping up as Liverpool’s main man down the line.
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