Former Liverpool defender Glen Johnson has claimed that Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk may have been waiting to see how the Reds coped with the departure of Jurgen Klopp before entertaining the idea of staying at Anfield.

Alongside fellow Kop stalwart Trent Alexander-Arnold, the pair have less than six months left to run on their current contracts with the Merseysiders. As things stand, the players in question will be free to depart the club for nothing at the conclusion of the current season.

In addition, all three stars are permitted to talk with foreign sides over a potential pre-contract agreement during the remainder of their respective deals. Although Alexander-Arnold is attracting interest from Real Madrid, Liverpool chiefs remain confident of convincing Salah and Van Dijk to renew their contracts, according to the Mirror.

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Now, ex-England full-back Johnson has provided some insight into what the thought process of the latter duo might be when it comes to engaging in negotiations with Reds dealmakers. In an exclusive interview with Liverpool.com, he claimed: "Initially, it will have been [a question of] ‘who is going to be the new manager?’ Then waiting to see how well they were gonna do.

"They probably surprised themselves in terms of where they are in the league because, let’s face it, none of us expected them to be doing this so soon. Then they’re looking around the dressing room thinking ‘well, Mo might not be here, Van Dijk might not be here’, so then they’re waiting on each other’s positions."

Addressing why the players in question may have been reluctant to commit to new deals until after the season had started, he contended: "Then, at the same time, they are trying to protect themselves because if Arne Slot had not done such a great job now and Liverpool were sat in sixth, all three of them would probably leave.

"Whereas now that they’re leading the league and potentially going to win it, of course the different negotiation side starts because now the players are thinking ‘well, now if we all stay we can continue doing this’."

As Johnson points out, his former club has made an impressive start to life under Arne Slot after he succeeded Klopp in the Anfield hotseat. The Dutchman has led his team to the summit of both the Premier League and Champions League standings at this midway stage of the campaign.

The one-time Chelsea man continued: "So I think there’s an awful lot of factors to it and I think the players are waiting to see if anyone is going to leave first, to see who the manager was and waiting to see how the team was doing in the league.

"All three of those things have been great so far, so now they’ve probably got a tougher decision than if Liverpool were actually struggling."

When it comes to Madrid's interest in Alexander-Arnold, Johnson acknowledged that the right-back potentially faces a very difficult decision. Predicting that Liverpool could still convince the player to stay, he added: "He hasn’t got a contract, so he’s going to need to play football somewhere.

"Also, whether he has a contract or not, Madrid have a big pull. A lot of players would love to play for Madrid. Obviously, he’s already at a huge club, but he’s already won everything there is to win, so you can kind of understand why [his contract situation] gets attention. But I’m sure if the deals were equal, he’d probably pick Liverpool."