Sign Salah up for life, Liverpool: Neil Humphreys
Reds should show Egyptian striker the respect he deserves
In the tiresome age of hyperbole, Mohamed Salah prefers humility. He's the understated genius in an industry governed by overstatement.
The world's greatest footballers are supposed to go down in folklore. Salah still runs the risk of being forgotten beyond the Shankly Gates.
That's no exaggeration. Just look at Juergen Klopp and Jamie Carragher stepping forward to champion his cause, like volunteers overcompensating for a lacklustre political candidate. It seems absurd.
Salah is the best in the business right now. His involvement in both of Liverpool's goals in their 2-2 draw against Manchester City felt like the latest contribution to a career-long audition for recognition.
Some can slip in a perfect through-pass to find Sadio Mane for Liverpool's opener. Almost none can score Liverpool's second. Salah lost five blue jerseys as the rest of us lost any sense of conventional gravity and movement.
As Klopp pointed out, when Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo scores a goal like that, it's a rubber-stamping of their GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) status. When Salah does likewise, it's a special moment, subliminally suggesting a one-off, rather than a regular day in the life of the Egyptian.
And yet, it is. Salah has made the ridiculous feel routine for years.
There was the 2018 Puskas Award for that stupendous strike against Everton. He jinked past Tottenham Hotspur's defence that same year. He smashed one past Chelsea in 2019 and curled a stunning effort in the hammering of Crystal Palace a year later.
But the 29-year-old's unique capacity to salvage or win a game, on his own if necessary, are constantly being highlighted, as if there are still Salah sceptics to win over.
Carragher has underlined the forward's value, arguing that Salah's place in Liverpool's all-time XI was assured and his club future had to be nailed down now.
Contract negotiations continue to stall between Liverpool and the Egyptian's advisers.
Salah earned the Reds a point that they barely deserved against City, scoring his 103rd goal in the English Premier League and his ninth in all competitions this season, but his monetary value remains a topic for discussion, apparently.
So let's simplify it for Liverpool's numbers people. He's priceless.
In football terms, Salah is worth whatever he wants, whatever the inflated market rate happens to be for humble geniuses capable of carrying their teammates against the champions.
Liverpool's fiscal prudence is well documented and admired in the gluttonous climate that still leaves a bad taste in a pandemic.
But the club's hesitancy makes no sense from both football and financial perspectives.
Finding a reliable goalscorer and supplier in epic contests is still a thankless search for needles in haystacks (just ask Pep Guardiola. What he wouldn't give for a finisher like Salah?).
In monetary terms, paying £500,000 (S$922,000) a week to a footballer who'll turn 30 next year may seem like a risky proposition. But try replacing him.
These days, £100 million doesn't buy one Harry Kane. So £50m wouldn't buy half a Salah. Only clubs bankrolled by nation states can match the going rate for geniuses. Why haggle over a few bucks for Liverpool's artist in residence?
DOLLARS AND SENSE
Pay him half a million pounds a week and he'll still only cost £26m a year, which usually buys an unused substitute for a club of the Reds' stature.
Salah shouldn't still need Klopp or Carragher to fight his corner in the court of public opinion any more than he needs his agents to remind the club of his true value.
His case was made, definitively, yet again, against City.
Salah doesn't preen like Ronaldo or draw the spotlight like Messi, but he's currently eclipsing both. And a GOAT should be kept for life, not just until his contract runs out.
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