Liverpool could lose three of their best players — Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold — for nothing in less than 100 days. That is the stark reality of the contract chess game being played out right now at Anfield, because the sands of time really are running down to the final grains.
Salah (32 years old), Van Dijk (33) and Alexander-Arnold (25) are all out of contract at the end of this season and, as a consequence, will each be able to negotiate with a non-English club from Jan. 1, 2025, over a free agent transfer at the end of this season. Each member of the trio has a different value to the team, and the three are at different stages of their careers, but because of the way Liverpool have rolled the dice, they have now become inextricably connected to each other to the extent that whoever’s future is settled first will have a direct impact on what happens with the others.
Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), and their football operations team, led by football CEO Michael Edwards, know exactly what is at stake in the weeks ahead. The silence from within the Liverpool boardroom about each individual contract situation is not unusual and makes sense from a business perspective, but it has created uncertainty and concern among supporters — concern at the potential loss of up to three star players but also at the club’s failure to resolve the situation months earlier. Beyond that, it has left a vacuum that has been filled by statements from each player only adding to the sense of a club gambling with high stakes.
Van Dijk was the first to go public on his situation in August, saying there had been “no change” in the lack of a contract offer from the club. Salah then followed the Netherlands defender in September when, after scoring in a 3-0 win at Manchester United, he also revealed that Liverpool had yet to open talks over a new deal.
“Nobody at the club has spoken to me yet about a new contract, so I just play this last season and then see at the end of the season,” Salah said. “It’s not up to me, but nobody has talked to me about a contract with the club. We’ll see.”
With Van Dijk and Salah, Liverpool’s delay in negotiating new contracts is perhaps understandable. With both players in their 30s and among the club’s highest earners, a calculation must be made by the club over their value in the years ahead.
How long Van Dijk and Salah will be able to perform as world-class players — and whether the club can confidently offer a one-, two- or even three-year contract without the risk of being stuck towards the end of that deal — is the dilemma FSG face. In recent years, with star players such as Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Jordan Henderson, FSG erred on the side of caution and moved each of them out before a decline set in. The records of Mané, Firmino and Henderson since leaving Liverpool have proved that the club were right in each case to offload them.