What do Salomon Rondon, Ademola Lookman and Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang have in common? I’ll give you the answer: all three of them were nominated for FIFA’s The Best Men’s Attacker accolade ahead of Mohamed Salah.
Salah is objectively markedly better than all three of those players, and the snub is clearly nothing to do with his contributions on the pitch. Granted, the nominees were largely selected based off their performances last season, but even so, Salah scored 25 times during the 2023-24 campaign and he was more worthy of inclusion than many of the names on the shortlist.
While there is no doubt that Liverpool fans truly appreciate Salah’s greatness, it’s fair to say that the Egyptian doesn’t get the credit he deserves for the remarkable numbers he has been putting up ever since he moved to Anfield.
There are the regular Salah vs. Eden Hazard debates that crop up on social media (Hazard himself plumped for Salah), while just this week a clip of soccer fans debating who the Premier League’s all-time right winger was shared by The Overlap — and one supporter tried to make a case for David Beckham over Salah.
As brilliant as Beckham was, he doesn’t hold a candle to Salah. In a similar amount of Premier League appearances, the Liverpool forward has scored 105 more goals than Beckham and registered just eight fewer assists.
There is little doubt that Salah is underrated by the wider soccer world, and Liverpool has the chance to show him just how highly he is regarded at Anfield with the kind of contract he is demanding.
Liverpool does not generally hand long contracts to players who are over the age of 30, but Salah is only 32 and he is the consummate professional, which could add years onto the tail end of his career.
Robert Lewandowski is still banging in the goals for Barcelona aged 36, while Lionel Messi won the World Cup at 35 and Karim Benzema claimed the Ballon d’Or at 34. Age is just a number.
Understandably, Liverpool cannot satisfy the contract demands of all of its players, and there is the small matter of trying to keep Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold for the Reds to take care of too.
But surely keeping hold of Salah has to be the priority given the explosive manner in which he has started the season. He is the most irreplaceable of the trio — it’s time for Liverpool to give him what he wants.
