Mohamed Salah wants to end career at Liverpool but future is ‘not in my hands’

Mohamed Salah has said he would love to finish his career with Liverpool but his future is “not in my hands”. The Egypt international has entered the final two years of his Liverpool contract and, despite the club extending the Anfield careers of Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold in recent months, no agreement has been reached so far on a new deal for their leading goalscorer.

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Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, will have to sanction the most lucrative contract in the club’s history to secure Salah’s long-term future. The 29-year-old, who this week became the first player in the club’s history to score in nine consecutive matches, is currently on an incentivised deal worth about £200,000 a week. Kevin De Bruyne earns £385,000 a week at Manchester City while Cristiano Ronaldo is understood to be on a similar sum at Manchester United.

In an interview with Sky Sports in the buildup to Liverpool’s visit to United on Sunday, Salah has made his intentions clear to FSG. He said: “If you ask me, I would love to stay until the last day of my football career, but I can’t say much about that – it’s not in my hands. It depends on what the club want, not on me.

“At the moment I can’t see myself ever playing against Liverpool. That would make me sad. It’s hard, I don’t want to talk about it, but it would make me really sad. At the moment I don’t see myself playing against Liverpool but let’s see what will happen in the future.”

Jürgen Klopp has described Salah as “the best player in the world” several times this season and the forward admits he is driven by the desire to achieve that status. Salah added: “It sounds great to me but I think it’s always opinion. I can’t say I’m the best player in the world – some people agree, some people not. I’m just happy about my performance at the moment, but I would always say it’s opinion.

“It’s always the ambition to be the best player in the world. I don’t have to lie. It’s something that drives me to work really hard and just try to be the best version of myself. In my head, I’m the best player all the time. I’m trying to have that confidence in my head. It doesn’t matter if some people agree with you, some people not.”