"I won't pretend" - Robbie Fowler on Mohamed Salah's contract situation

Former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler has given his opinion on the saga surrounding Mohamed Salah's future.

The winger is out of contract at the conclusion of next season. The Reds reportedly offered Salah a new deal back in March, but he rejected it.

The Egyptian international apparently wants a better pay day. Therefore, Fowler has implied that he has no idea where Salah's long-term future lies.

“I won’t pretend to know what’s going on with his contract, but clearly the answer is: nothing much. And that leaves so many questions unanswered,” he wrote in his column for the Mirror, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.

“One thing is obvious, the club has done some very clear, precise and unemotional calculations with (Sadio) Mane. He’s 31 in April, has a huge amount of running in his legs, and wanted a huge contract as one of the best players in the world.

“I don’t blame him for that. Mane is the equal of virtually every world-class star at the moment, and rightly wanted that recognition with the going rate for the last big contract of his career. What Liverpool so obviously did though, was run their analytics – which to their credit they do so well – and decided selling him to buy Darwin Nunez and keep their wage structure in place was the right thing for the club. It begs the question, what calculations have they run on Salah?

“Again, I don’t know all the answers, but what screams out to me so clearly, is they won’t be breaking their wage structure to keep him. If they were prepared to do that, it would have happened by now. But look, I can’t blame Salah for wanting the going rate, just like Mane did. He’s the Premier League Golden Boot winner, he’s the Footballer of the Year and in with a great shout of the Ballon d’Or top three.

“What salary does a player in the top three in the world command? He obviously believes it’s more than Liverpool are offering. But if my old club are running complex calculations, then so too is Salah – and it can never be a precise science. I think him saying no matter what happens with his contract, he’ll be at Anfield next year was clearly a threat.

“His calculation is that if he gets to leave Liverpool next summer on a free, with his salary and with a big bonus because there’s no fee, he’ll get that level of wages."

Anfield Watch Verdict

Fowler is spot on. There are so many unanswered questions regarding Salah's long-term future.

Hopefully the winger extends his stay at Anfield. Salah has scored 156 goals in 254 appearances for Liverpool's first-team. The aforementioned figures highlight that he is a world-class player.

Salah averaged a WhoScored player rating of 7.42 across the 2021-22 campaign and he is only 30 years of age. Therefore, he is far from finished at the top level.

Hopefully Liverpool and Salah can reach an agreement sooner rather than later. We never want to see the best players leave Anfield.