Arne Slot saluted “extraordinary” Mohamed Salah after another superb performance helped Liverpool go eight points clear in the Premier League with a 5-0 drubbing of West Ham United. And the Reds boss has joked that the opening of the January transfer window might help ease the amount of questions he is asked about the forward’s ongoing contract impasse.
Salah, who scored his 20th goal of the campaign before setting up Diogo Jota with a sublime second-half assist on Sunday, can speak to clubs outside of England from New Year’s Day about moving as a free agent next summer and a resolution to the situation doesn’t appear close, with the top scorer claiming at full time that “we are far away” from an agreement.
Goals from Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jota sealed an emphatic victory for the Premier League leaders Slot was full of praise for the Egypt captain in his post-match press conference while laughing off the prospect of adding to his squad when the window opens from January 1.
“Mo, when the word extraordinary [is said], it’s something I’ve heard a lot in the last six months and he truly deserves this and probably in the last eight years, but I’m [only] involved in the last half year,” Slot said.
“So yeah, I don’t think he keeps surprising us. We know what a player he is and we know he’s able to do so. But apart from that, he works really hard for the team also when the other team has the ball and yeah, we can only hope that he can keep bringing these performances in.
“But I would like to add that if he scores, there’s also a lead up to him scoring. So there are also other players that bring him in these positions, but if you bring Mo in these positions, he’s extraordinary. Definitely.”
On Salah, Alexander-Arnold and Van Dijk’s contract situations from the start of 2025, Slot added: “I think I have a lot of control over what they do. If they’re on a training pitch, if they’re in a meeting with me, but talking about the private lives, I don’t have control about them. So that was the situation I had a year ago.
