With Salah defying the age curve, Liverpool has tricky questions to answer

Ever since he joined Liverpool in 2017, Mohamed Salah has conveyed a sense of inevitability.

It’s a trait that has comforted Reds fans as much as it has struck fear in the hearts of rival supporters — you can try stopping him all you want, but he invariably finds a way to generate a moment of game-defining brilliance.

The numbers bear this out. Looking at just the Premier League, Salah has averaged 22 goals and almost 10 assists per season from 2017-18 to 2023-24. And even when he isn’t scoring or setting up goals at a rate only a select few have matched, the gravity of his presence, with markers drawn to him, opens up space elsewhere on the pitch for teammates to exploit.

Guaranteed end-product?

What makes Salah exceptional is that he has continued to produce end-product in his late 20s and early 30s. The growth of football analytics, especially its influence on player recruitment and retention, has led to an emphasis on understanding how footballers age. With the sums of money involved in transfers, few clubs can afford mistakes on when to buy and sell players. 

While there are always outliers, players whose games require explosive bursts of speed as well the ability to sprint repeatedly at high intensity — such as wingers and full-backs — typically peak earlier than others. This becomes all the more significant when they play in teams that press a lot — given the physical demands, it’s difficult to accommodate players past their athletic prime.

At 32, Salah is defying the age curve. Wingers, according to the current consensus in football recruitment circles, tend to peak in the mid-20s, with an athletic drop-off expected in the 30s, if not the late 20s. This doesn’t appear to be the case with Salah, so far. While he has had dips in form, there haven’t been any obvious signs to suggest his days at the highest level are past him. 

Given the degree of professionalism among elite players, as well as the access to the most advanced sports science, many stars have found ways to lengthen their careers. But this places clubs in tricky positions when it comes to making decisions on contract extensions. 

Liverpool and Salah are in such a situation at the moment. The winger is out of contract at the end of the season, but his performances have been essential in Liverpool’s superb first half of the season. With 13 goals and 9 assists in just 15 Premier League games this season — he has been involved in almost 71% of Liverpool’s 31 goals this season! — Salah has been the predominant contributor to new manager Arne Slot’s dream beginning to life at Anfield.

Add his two goals and four assists in 6 Champions League games, which have propelled Liverpool to top of the table in Europe’s pre-eminent club competition, and you get a sense of just how valuable Salah has already been this season.

Costs and consequences

But just how much can Liverpool afford to invest in the probability of Salah continuing to play at the same level when he is 33, 34, possibly 35? And what are the consequences of retaining the Egyptian, already the club’s highest-paid player ever, on bigger wages? Will it come at the cost of missing out on recruiting his successor at a prime age?

What makes things even tricker is that Salah is one of three key Liverpool stars whose deals expire in June 2025. Captain Virgil van Dijk, 33, and full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, 26, are also yet to agree new terms. Not only have all three been at the centre of Liverpool’s resurgence under Jurgen Klopp, with the club winning the complete set of trophies headlined by the Premier League and the Champions League, they have also formed a part of the club’s identity.

Managing a transition without any of them is a scary proposition for Liverpool fans. It’s no wonder that there has been feverish speculation about the futures of all three, but especially that of Salah, whose goals make his talismanic value more readily apparent to the average football fan.

Salah has raised doubts about staying, saying in November that he is “probably more out than in”; that the matter wasn’t in his hands because he hadn’t been offered an extension. “You know I have been in the club for many years, there is no club like this,” he added, offering a sense of what he wanted, which was in line with his earlier frustration over a lack of progress. 

After the win over Manchester City earlier this month, he told Sky Sports that it was “probably the last City game” he would play at Anfield. Some viewed it as Salah trying to force Liverpool’s hand ahead of January when he can talk to foreign clubs over a pre-contract agreement. It’s impossible to say if this is an accurate interpretation of Salah’s words, but there certainly have been developments after he said them.

Developing situation

Spanish newspaper MARCA recently claimed that Salah was “now close to remaining a Liverpool player for another season” after his contract situation had “completely changed”. The Athletic journalist David Ornstein reported that Liverpool had made an opening offer to the 32-year-old, with an outcome expected to take time even as the two parties remain in talks.

The length of the contract and Salah’s wages will prove crucial — the more the club commits to the player, the smaller its leverage in the transfer market. Will hot young wing talents want to come to Liverpool knowing they won’t start until Salah departs? Liverpool will also be wary of a situation in which Salah’s impact lessens, but it becomes difficult to move him out. 

Handling such a scenario with the respect Salah doubtless deserves but also with the ruthlessness that staying at the top demands will prove challenging. Big clubs risk displeasing their fans and dividing dressing rooms when a relationship with a club hero begins to sour.

Football and chill: In addition to powering Liverpool’s success, Salah has enjoyed his time on Merseyside. | Photo credit: Getty Images

Equally, the risk of losing one or two elite Salah seasons without being able to adequately replace the great winger is considerable. With the Premier League more competitive than ever, a reliable scorer of goals is invaluable; it can prove the difference between contending for the title and missing the cut for the Champions League.

Liverpool does have one advantage. It’s incredibly well-placed to assess Salah’s athletic condition and the likelihood of his continuing to operate at a world-beating standard, thanks to the granular data it would have been able to collect since 2017, monitoring various physical parameters in games, training, recovery and rehabilitation.

“From day one, even when many of his teammates were absent, he trained hard and led by example,” Slot said of Salah recently. “It’s no surprise he’s performing so well. It is difficult for me to predict the future but the only thing I can expect or predict is that he is in a very good team that provides him with opportunities. Mo is in a very good place at the moment.”