Arne Slot speaks at length about Mohamed Salah’s new Liverpool contract from the embargoed section of his Friday press conference
Arne Slot speaks with Mohamed Salah not long after taking over as Liverpool head coach(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Arne Slot says the renewal of Mohamed Salah’s contract sends out the ideal message about Liverpool’s ambition to build on a potential Premier League title success this summer. And the Reds boss believes the 32-year-old’s professionalism and dedication will allow him to maintain the sort of standards that have seen him plunder 32 goals across all competitions this term.
Salah ended months of speculation by penning a two-year extension that was announced on Friday morning on official club channels after filming and a photo shoot was undertaken at Anfield ahead of the confirmation.
Salah’s captain, Virgil van Dijk, is expected to soon follow suit with a new contract of his own and Slot thinks the resigning of the Egyptian shows how determined the club is to continue thriving beyond a campaign that sees them requiring just 11 points from the final 21 on offer to become champions of England for a 20th time.
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“It’s a good message, I assume and I think,” Slot says of Salah‘s new deal. “It shows that, again, we are ambitious, we want to keep a very good player like Mo Salah at this club. We’ve worked hard, and by we I mean the ownership (Fenway Sports Group), Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes, to achieve that. And that’s a good start for this summer, clearly.
“I wouldn’t say [Salah’s decision is a compliment] for my work, I think the work we’ve done as a team, as a staff for eight or nine months, because I don’t know, you have to ask Mo, but if we were now maybe 10th in the league, I’m not so sure if we would have extended it as well. But where we are at the moment, I’m part of that, but it’s mostly the hard work the players and all the staff members have put in to be where we are now.
“But, yeah, maybe Mo would have loved to play in the Conference League as well. Maybe he would have extended that also! We will never know, but the good thing is that we’ve stayed at the level this club has been in the past seven or eight years. And that might, might – you have to ask him – have an influence on his decision.”
Despite joining the club in the knowledge that Salah was into the final year of his deal, Slot initially opted against asking the No.11 what his long-term plans were and instead waited for what he felt was the right time to gain more clarity on his top-scorer’s thinking.
“I don’t exactly remember when that moment was [we started talking], but what I do know is that when I came in, my main focus was to look at the qualities of the squad and how we should play, and to get to know them in the best possible way,” Slot said.
“And then the moment he scores goal after goal after goal, I think you can understand that maybe once in a while I made a call to Richard saying it might be a good idea to keep him a bit longer because he’s quite important for us!
“But I don’t need to make that call because you guys saw it, I saw it, ownership saw and as a result of that we gave him, I think, quite a good contract. Everyone is happy.
“That’s always difficult [to know if Salah was always convinced to stay] because in the past I’ve spoken to players to try to bring him to a club and they ask me, do you think he’s coming? I said 99% sure he’s coming and a day later he signed somewhere else. You never know this in football, you need to get to know a person.
“And by getting to know him better and better and better, I got more and more the feeling that he would extend with us because I think the players I just talked about are players I met only once, the longer you know a person you better you get to have the conversations like I had.”
Salah will be 33 before next season begins but Slot played down the age as being too much of a concern for the coming years, adding: “It’s never easy for a player to stay at the levels we are on. They have to work really hard for that, not only during the weekend but also during the week.
“That’s exactly what he does. If you look at his body, how much he takes care of his body, not only physically but also mentally, that gives him a very good chance to stay at this level longer than maybe other players can.
“We’ve got great examples of this in football as well in the past. The better you take care of your body the more chance you have to stay at this level. It’s not only him that will stay at a certain level, we have to stay at a certain level and then Mo will produce.
“Like I always say, we have to bring him as much as we can in promising positions. The teams we face are making it harder and harder to bring him in promising positions. [The age] always depends on the player.
“We have all the confidence in him that he can produce two more years than he has produced in the past seven or eight years, because of the reasons I just gave you. But also because we will make this team very strong next season. Then it’s always nice to have someone that can make a goal.
“The positive thing about him extending now is that we are quite close to next season, so we can better expect what we get next season than we could maybe 12 months ago.
“Where does he rank in the list of all-time greats? I think that’s a better question to ask someone who’s been at this club for 30 years, than to ask that to someone who’s been here for one year.
“When I asked someone when I came here who’s the best player that ever played at this club, they gave me an answer. They said Kenny Dalglish. But I’ve never seen Kenny playing, so it’s hard for me to judge where Mo is compared to all these players.
“I think you have to ask if the people are a bit older than me. They are following Liverpool for so many more years than I do. But it’s clear that in the recent era, Mo is definitely one of the ones.”
Slot was serenaded by Reds-supporting workmen on his way into the AXA Training Centre at Kirkby on Friday morning, with a number of fans purportedly cheering on the prospect of a league title victory this term as the head coach waited in traffic.
“They weren’t singing for Mo Salah, they were saying something else!” Slot laughed when asked about the incident. “I think they were more buzzing about the position we are in the league at the moment.
“But I think it’s clear that the fans are happy for Mo to extend, and I expect they will show their appreciation on Sunday during the game and hopefully they will be there for all the other players as well.”