Oh yeah I agree. Just thinking about when Coutinho left and we signed VVD in January like we have done with Diaz. Then brought Fabinho, Keita, Alisson and Shaq in over the summer. We almost signed Fekir as well.
I’d rather not have a big turnover but a lot of talk earlier on in the season was that the summer of 2022 would be a big one for us with regard to rebuilding.
For the record I’d rather keep Mo and just bring in Carvalho and Bellingham 
I might be getting confused, but I thought Fekir was earlier than that? I though that was right at the end of the window we did Gini, Mo and Ox?
I really hope that Mo will sign a new contract but if he doesn’t would we be better off selling him or let him run his contract down? We have some players where we have an understudy who is almost at the same level as our preferred starter, e.g. Robertson/Tsimikas or Alisson/Kelleher. I don’t think we have an obvious understudy for Salah who is at his level. If he goes, we will have to be signing a replacement one way or the other.
I’m sure that our backroom staff will have been checking out possible recruits but if there was no-one suitable in the summer and Salah definitely wants to go (or, at least, his agent is forcing a move) would we be better off keeping him and let him go on a free? As we have seen with Diaz, there are talented players who really want to play for us these days. If there is no-one who can easily escape their contract in the summer there may well be a player available at a later date.
I think we’re going to have difficulty selling him.
If a club come in and put £100m on the table I’m sure we’ll sell, but I can’t see a club making that kind of offer for a player who is 30 years old.
I just don’t think there is a club other than PSG who would make that kind of offer, and if Salah is serious about winning Balon d’ors and Champions Leagues, then PSG are probably not worth his time.
The sensible thing from Salah’s perspective is to hold tight, let his contract expire and then move to somewhere like Barca, Real or Bayern.
Real, Bayern and Citeh are the three teams where he could conceivably compete on all fronts like at Liverpool and also earn more, especially on a free.
PSG seem the most obvious to be prepared to pay a fee in the summer but I could also see Citeh being prepared to pay even more - potentially 80-100m for him (especially if we win the CL/PL this season with him). Not sure we would entertain this though!
Mo was not in training today.
Hope it won’t be long after the international break until he returns and hope they don’t do stupid things and nominate him for the two games against Senegal.
Summer of 2018
I do wonder who’ll be able to afford the kind of wages he’s rumoured to be after. If he wants £350k-£400k a week, where is he getting it other than PSG? And if he goes PSG, is he going to be pushed to play down the middle so Messi can play wide left?
If Mbappe goes to Madrid then they’ve got their Galatico for this summer and will be paying him a kings ransom in wages. Can they afford to do that plus a transfer fee and wages for Mo this summer. Barca aren’t going to be able to pay that and even if they could, does he want to step into what is a shell of the club it once was? It’d be a big step up for Bayern from their current top earners, no one in Italy is going to be able to afford that and even City I think would struggle to pay him £400k a week and make it look like £200k a week on the books.
I’m increasingly thinking the club will stand their ground and he’ll be here next year. Either he then compromises or we let him walk for free happy enough that we got our £35m worth of value out of him and will replace him with someone in the Diaz price bracket. Unlike when Coutinho was sold, there isn’t a need for wholesale changes at the moment and therefore selling him on the (relative) cheap isn’t really as valuable as that extra year we get out of him.
But that still leaves a lot of questions about Mane and Firmino. It feels very much like we’re waiting for the Mo domino to fall whichever way it is going to before we do anything with those two and I can’t see us going into next season with all three in their last year of their contract. But if you’re them, why wouldn’t you wait and see what Mo gets if he signs before agreeing your own new deal?
I would think Real Madrid could comfortably do it. Bale, Isco and Marcelo are out of contract this summer as is Modric and not all of those will be retained. Their revenues will have seen a bump as Covid restrictions will have lessened. Then there is the $400m a year they are now getting from some US sports company plus any additional sponsorship or TV revenue deal they get done for this year.
It’s allegedly ball park with what Lewondowski is on now. The story there is they are willing to move him on this summer as they see the opportunity to move on to what has to come next by trying to snag Haaland. But if that falls through, and it surely will, Mo for 3 years on lewondowski’s salary still seems like a way to do that. A Mo’s age it is pushing the can down the road, but it will help them sustain where they are for a few more years. It’s a possibility that isnt getting talked about much, but you can see a way where the dots align.
I guess that makes it PSG or Real Madrid as his only viable options then. Just depends who needs what when?
If Mbappe goes to Real this summer, they’ll need to make a big splash signing for the right wing. Maybe Sadio fits their bill and we already have Diaz as his ready made replacement. Mo stays another year and goes to Real as their 2022/23 Galatico signing on a bosman and we go shopping for a replacement then. Bobby gets a new contract that reflects his declining importance. Sell one, lose one, keep one and the two thirds of the succession is already complete with one sticking around for a bit of continuity.
Going to be fascinating to see it play out but im pretty calm about all possible outcomes.
Ah fuck I bet Egypt will select him for both games v Senegal in the World Cup play off 
Or we put Sadio on the right and Diaz on the left.
Sorted.
Takes a lot to top Franco.
That seems like the obvious thing to me too.
Where would Mbappe and Haaland play then?
City- no chance we sell to them.
PSG- Mo is clearly driven by team and individual honours and he’s not winning the CL or Bd’Or there.
Barca- shite and broke.
Real- the only feasible option, if they don’t get MBappe. Would be a bad move for Salah though.
Sign the page Mo!
There’s not enough information out there to know what’s going on. I’ve heard time and time again that FSG are trying to stick to their wage structure, which likely would pay Mo less - far less - than he could earn at another big club. I’ve also heard that FSG are unwilling to pay a player high wages into their 30s. There is some reason in the perspectives of both sides.
It always bothers me why people end up bashing the millionaire player over the billionaire ownership group. The millionaire being “greedy” while the billionaire is “financially prudent.”
Without knowing what FSG are offering and what Mo is demanding, there is no way of knowing who is being reasonable here. All we can hope for is that it gets resolved.
From the pov of the player, more is ok, excessively more is greedy, more than what can be afforded is selfish and greedy.
From the pov of the club, saving money in itself can’t be greedy, saving money and hoarding it is greedy, spending a % of revenue is one of the smart ways of not going bankrupt.
For arguments sake, a 10% increase in mo’s wages isn’t going to come close to increasing the clubs revenue by 10%, and I don’t think anyone would expect the two to be linked, but you definitely don’t want that revenue/expense ratio getting out of control. I think a combination of a overpriced contract (irrelevant if it’s earned and only relevant to us if it’s affordable), and the knock on effect of the squad will push that ratio up higher than we would be comfortable with.
At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone thinks we can come close to giving him the biggest contract in football, there are other clubs that can do that, so if that’s what he wants then he will have to leave. Just don’t leave us hanging on, if you not going to sign then don’t and leave, or if the club won’t increase its offer, then stop fucking around and sell. Just stop this shit at this time of the season, because that shit IS so fucking unbelievably selfish.
FSG are not going bankrupt, though. They are flush with cash and revenue, and worth billions of dollars with tons of valuable assets elsewhere. This isn’t some locally owned club that’s trying to survive against the behemoths surrounding them. They can very easily afford to pay Mo a million quid a week if they so choose to do so.
From their perspective, though, it’s about suppressing the wage demands of everyone else as much as it is about Mo. They don’t want to pay Mo 400k a week only to have Sadio knocking on the door and saying “where’s mine?” Not because they couldn’t afford to bump everyone’s wages, but also because they have a built in financial incentive to spend the least they possibly can on a successful club. A club that they’ll eventually sell for a tidy profit off of what they paid for it in large part because of their success on the pitch.
And I get that. I really do. But at the end of the day, FSG and Mo are two sides of the same coin when it comes to a contract negotiation.