Mohamed Salah’s departure feels right for him and Liverpool

In an attempt to make sense of the crazy world he was suddenly inhabiting as his fame soared, Mohamed Salah educated himself through books.

Salah is an enthusiastic reader and he likes to speak to authors, occasionally cold calling them to try and find out more and offer his view. A few years ago, an Egyptian working in the north west of England was taken aback when his phone rang and Salah, his number withheld, was on the other end of the line.

The academic had released a paper about the relationship between body and mind, thinking nobody outside of Cairo’s universities would see it. To his surprise, Salah had got hold of a copy and wanted to drill deeper into its detail.

At the end of a conversation that only stopped because of school pick-ups, Salah had left the impression that he was really serious about squeezing every ounce of talent out of himself.

Salah often has the whiff of a sportsperson who lacks depth or even a hinterland but that is far from the case. He knows about African literature and a bit of philosophy, especially the sort of stuff that he thinks might help him in some small way when he steps out on to a football pitch.

He is aware of the metaphorical phrase, frequently used by Professor Patrick Lumumba, the Kenyan intellectual, who suggests, “a good dancer must know when to leave the stage”.

Salah, it has to be stressed, still considers himself good with his feet — even if his output has dropped alarmingly this season — but he also knows that no matter how twinkle-toed or successful you have been, it is wise to move on while the audience, at least, is still skipping to your beat.

The wording on the club statement that announced his summer departure from Liverpool early on Tuesday evening felt coded, with the second paragraph stating that Salah “has reached an agreement with the Reds that will see him close a remarkable nine-year chapter at Anfield”.

This might imply that Salah has pushed for an exit. It was he, after all, who in December claimed that he felt as though he had been “thrown under the bus” by unnamed figures at Liverpool after being left on the bench for a game at Leeds United.

Mohamed Salah’s relationship with Arne Slot has come under strain (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)

His decision to talk about his position did not surprise the club but the strength of his words did. As far as Liverpool were concerned, at that stage there were no immediate plans to move him on. Salah was the one with the problem and it was up to him to make any position about his future clear if he was really unhappy.

Ultimately, Salah is not the sort of character who likes being pushed around. He will feel comfortable in the role of agitator because it makes it seem like he is in control. Yet the decision to separate not even 12 months into a two-year contract that was signed last April with arguably more attendant noise than any other in the club’s history feels right for everyone involved.

Salah has not always been mindful of his legacy. Across nine seasons at Liverpool, he has signed four contracts and before the third of those was finally agreed in 2022 after nearly two years of negotiations, he was so fed up that he considered the sort of career choice that would have risked trashing his reputation at Anfield. As time has moved on, however, and with his options narrowing, he has been more conscious of the value of his status, and what he risks losing.

This offers him, and the club, the chance of a clean exit. He will receive a hero’s goodbye, something Trent Alexander-Arnold did not experience after he got his choreography all wrong last year. Instead, the farewell will be close to the one that Jurgen Klopp received in 2024 and this will happen regardless of how a difficult season for Liverpool and a poor one for Salah concludes.

While Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s owners, will say it is grateful for everything Salah has done and the sentiment will be genuine, it will be happy to get Salah off a wage bill that stands as the second biggest in the Premier League. His departure opens up a space in the team for new energy, on a considerably smaller salary.

From here, however, they should ask whether the employees who renewed the contract of the highest-paid player in the club’s history at the age of 33 were strong enough amidst fan pressure demanding they “Give Mo His Dough”, as the banner on the Kop put it.

Liverpool have been successful under FSG but they have not delivered sustained success. This is not easy to achieve but Liverpool were that club once, when the real art was not necessarily the inspiring management, the scouting or the mysterious training methods, but the ruthlessness in thanking legendary players for their time and moving them on.

In fairness, the trick also meant not inviting too much change at once, like last summer at Liverpool, which indicates the team and the club’s current problems do not relate only to Salah.

For the time being, it is unclear where he will go from here. Last night, his lawyer and sole representative Ramy Abbas was as combative as ever online, warning of “click-whoring attention seekers” because, as he said, “we do not know where Mohamed will play next season. This also means that no one else knows.”

Which club would best suit Salah is a debate for another day. His departure from Liverpool marks the end of an era at Anfield but the obsession with him, across large parts of the world, will follow him wherever he appears next.