Mohamed Salah contract need hasn't changed but Liverpool reality still clear

When Mohamed Salah signed his last Liverpool contract, the news came out of the blue. It had emerged that the Egyptian would be willing to run down his existing deal and then join a Premier League rival on a free and soon after, the deal was sealed.

The photos of him putting pen to paper on a sunbed in Mykonos, Greece, are iconic

. But that was nearly two years ago and the time for a renewal is nearly here again. This summer, he will have one year left on his contract again — just as he did in 2022 — and negotiations are unlikely to be straightforward.

Salah's representative, Ramy Abbas Issa, caused plenty of stirs on social media the last time that Liverpool was in protracted conversations with his client. In the end, Salah, then 30, became Liverpool's highest-paid player of all time.

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At that point, though, he had just won a third Golden Boot in five seasons and had collected multiple Player of the Year awards after firing Liverpool to every final possible and within a point of the Premier League title. Sadio Mané had just departed for Bayern Munich and Salah was the superstar that Liverpool could not afford to lose at any cost.

This time, heading into the period in which negotiations could begin if they haven't already, things feel a little different. Salah has had an injury almost for the first time in his Anfield career and the goals have dried up since. He is not in the red-hot form that he was when Liverpool was negotiating the last time.

That is not to say, of course, that Salah should not get another contract. The clear reality is that Egyptian is still one of the most elite forwards in the world at his peak and he has 37 goal contributions in 38 appearances for the Reds so far this season. He remains near-impossible to replace and one injury does not necessarily signal that the end is nigh. He could still have a number of years left at the top and those should be played out at the highest level.

Additionally, while there has been interest from Saudi Arabia in signing Salah in the past, that appears much less likely to be a serious option for him now considering how poorly the league has turned out to be so far. The promises made to many a stellar name (including Jordan Henderson) last summer have so far spectacularly failed to come off.

That is a key factor that should make negotiating a new deal for Salah easier for Liverpool but so too is that he is not currently the best player on the planet, as he was the last time. Liverpool should still be tying him down this summer — and uncertainty behind the scenes including involving the unveiling of a new manager may be the only thing slowing it down, as is likely the case with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk — but perhaps there can be a quieter process this time around.

Short of a remarkable turnaround in form in the final six matches of the campaign, the noise level of the chatter surrounding a Salah extension should be lower this time. The outcome, though, should be the same as it was two years back.