Salah output is crazy, no doubt, but football doesn’t work like that. Haaland scored 60% of City’s goals last two seasons, everyone around him suddenly looks like they don’t know how to score goals, which clearly isn’t true. Haaland or Salah is the focus point of the team and deserves it, but it’s not like he single-handedly did everything. He’s not.
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I don’t think that anyone says that Salah does everything. But he’s still a world-class player and a big asset to our team.
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If this is to be Mo’s…Trent’s + whoever else’s last season then it gives Arne room to build a team that further reflects his philosophy, probably sooner than he’d have realised, and it’ll be thought provoking to see how he re-shapes the team, especially the forward line from a creative and goal scoring perspective.
Since Mane’s departure, the last few seasons the team has primarily been designed to cater to Salah’s strengths - giving him the license to keep isolated high up in space. Time will tell if we continue down this path, using the data sheet to find a player that could look to model Salah’s game.
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The best analogy I have of this is the English cricket team. They tried to replace Botham (as we needed a world class allrounder) and spent years failing because that player didn’t exist. We then did the same with Freddy, again, the player didn’t exist. We can’t get hung up on replacing the player Salah is, we need to evolve if he leaves.
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It’s a dilemma.
If we win the league… we will be even more attractive to a wider pool of players (there are always many who are swayed by the greater chance at trophies).
But then do you want to break up a winner that could maybe go at it again for another season? It could be the perfect chance to add… relative to 2 to 3 years further down the road after a disappointing campaign that is inevitable if we don’t replace our aging players. But it could also jeopardise chances at another strong run.
It’s a dilemma but change and rebuilding is inevitable. We can’t just pretend that it won’t happen and kick the bucket down the road (well we can, but the results might not be good).
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He might gotten slower at the top speed (which is not conclusive since we are not even at halfway mark) but his other stats on that table is not a sign of a player on any down ward trend
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Yes it is. Over the past 3 seasons, he is either sprinting less or running less, which means he is likely managing himself carefully and recovering from those sprints with period of walking rest in a way he didn’t have to do 4 years ago. All players do it, but as you hit your 30s you need more of them and longer. It is to his credit that this season he appears to be sprinting more, but as you note we are not even at the halfway mark, and these numbers almost always trend downwards through the season.
We are not looking at dropping off a cliff, this is a slow decline. If it was a sharp drop, we would not be having this discussion.
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Mo is scoring and assisting with great regularity. He is our most reliable contributor in the final third, so it is a conundrum. How long can he go on at this sort of level? Or similar?
To my eye, he is past peak. Not by a lot, but he is now on the downward slope, although so far it is a fairly minor thing. He doesn’t get away from fullbacks as he once did, and he isn’t quite as strong in holding off the challenges (it’s an unfortunate fact that for most of his Liverpool career he has been fouled continually, and he gets only a small fraction of the free kicks he should).
It is difficult to comment on the contract situation because we don’t know the terms being discussed. Is Mo insistent on three years at a higher rate than now? Slightly higher? Much higher?
Are we happy to do two more years on the same rate, but no more, as we can’t blow up our wage structure, even if Mo continues to be the highest paid player?
We just don’t know the terms, so it is hard to say what we should do.
I hope we keep him, as he is excellent. But if he decides to move on, I’m sure we will be fine. Slot will necessarily build his own side, and while he has benefitted from inheriting a great player called Salah, he inherited him near the end, so he would have always been thinking about how he might shape his team beyond Mo. If not yet, it will be soon.
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Agreed. Of course, what makes the contract discussion difficult is trying to guess when we will see that sharp decline: next year? 3 years from now?
Would love to keep this version of Mo forever, but I’d also rather his legs went while he was playing for someone else.
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Club also playing the game, calling his bluff that he would ever leave his beloved coffee machine.
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BREAKING: Liverpool coffee machine hands in transfer request.
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Very interesting, many thanks 
Body language experts, take over from here.
Must be staying. 
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He signed in latte art…
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Arne deliberately positioned Mo behind that piece of equipment, so they’d look like baldie brothers…
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£400k a week, 3 year deal…thats £60 odd million commitment.
Would £60m buy a world class game changer?
He’s priceless to us and we should be breaking the bank to retain him.
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Someone is intent on stirring it…
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Who knows mate, buying ABC is just the start of it…turns out £35-40m was enough to sign world class game changers in Sadio and Mo wasn’t it? Whoever you sign, they still need to be coached and developed. From there they either become stars like Salah and Mane or flops like Doku and Sancho. Of all the big money signings Chelsea made, it’s their 30m man who’s producing the goods right now.