Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad are considering increasing their offer for Mohamed Salah to £200m. If they do, Liverpool would be foolish not to accept.
Liverpool have remained defiant, rejecting a deadline day bid out of hand for their star man that could have reached £150m. But that is not likely to deter the Saudis.
The Mersey club are adamant they cannot sell, with no time to replace their star man. But selling Salah now is a no-brainer from a financial point of view. If you take the romanticism out of it, footballers are assets, and when someone offers way over the odds to buy one, you sell up and move on, using the money to develop other areas of the business.
Salah is an expensive asset at that – the highest-paid player in Liverpool history. He is also 31, has won all there is to win and has given his best years to achieve that.
If Salah were a Manchester City player, they wouldn’t think twice about selling.
Quite how City ascended to the very top is of course up for debate, but once at the summit, they have delivered a masterclass off the pitch as well as on it.
City have generated £320m from player sales in the past three seasons. When someone has offered them over the odds for an asset, they sell and keep improving.
Gabriel Jesus played a huge part in title-winning campaigns, but Arsenal were prepared to pay £50m for him, so off he went.
Cole Palmer’s sale is another example of City’s astounding business acumen. While there is no doubt he is a talented youngster, when Chelsea offered £42.5m for a player who had barely kicked a ball for the first team, it was thank you and goodbye.
Liverpool were once able to match City in the net-spend stakes. When Barcelona made a ridiculous offer for Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool let him go, to much consternation initially, only to emerge an even better side.
They have the forward options to do it again without Salah. Having slowly acclimatised to life in England, Darwin Nunez is looking every inch a £70m hitman.
Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota are back from lengthy injury layoffs and firing on all cylinders, while Cody Gakpo is blossoming into the versatile forward Jurgen Klopp always imagined he would be.
That should be enough to mount a title tilt, and if they are falling behind come January they could reinvest the Salah fee and bring in another world-class striker, with plenty of change left over.
Parting with a figure etched into Anfield folklore is tough, but feeling has to be taken out of it if Liverpool are again to be able to go toe-to-toe with a robotic City winning machine.
Al-Ittihad really, really want Salah. Sources have told i that he would be idolised like no other in the Middle East – an Arab superstar playing for his people.
As a result, their £150m offer may just be an opening gambit, sources said. There’s more to come, plenty of it potentially.
PIF-owned Al-Ittihad are well aware bidding on deadline day will not sit well, but that is the whole point – it is a power play of epic proportions.
It is a mischief-making move with the aim of showing that the league is not just a final payday for aging stars.
When a move makes this much sense, Al-Ittihad and their PIF overlords feel within their rights to act accordingly.
They are convinced the player would want the move and money is simply no object.
Their sights may shift on to even grander, younger targets this time next year, leaving Liverpool stuck with a depreciated asset. Salah may still have more to give, but he is not, at 31, irreplaceable.
Used sensibly, upwards of £150m can go a long way to seeing the Klopp rebuild get a finishing touch.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/mDk74Mc
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