If you speak to most Liverpool supporters about how things are going for the club at the moment, the majority will be feeling quite positive. Arne Slot’s time as ‘Head Coach’ has got off to a great start, winning the first three games of the season without conceding a goal, with one of those games being a really enjoyable 3-0 win over Manchester United.
Yet there is something of a dark cloud hanging over the club in spite of all of that, which comes in the form of the contract situations of Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah. The question is, why hasn’t the club got this sorted already?
All Parties Needed to Suss Each Other Out
It is something that many supporters don’t really think about, but the reality is that there have been some major changes at Anfield over the past six months. The manager announcing that he was leaving the club at the end of last season sent shockwaves through the fanbase, but it will also have left the players questioning what was going on.
For many of them, Jürgen Klopp is all they had known during their time at Liverpool, so the departure of the German wasn’t something that they will have been able to take in their stride. The announcement of Arne Slot as his replacement will have caused an amount of curiosity too.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk could all leave Liverpool on a free with their contracts expiring in 2025 😳 pic.twitter.com/rVAkaxi3Pm
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) September 3, 2024
Although as fans we’ve been able to sit back and wait to see how the Dutchman’s teams are going to play, Alexander-Arnold, van Dijk and Salah didn’t have that luxury. They have had to weigh up how Slot’s team was going to perform and whether they liked the new way of working.
Similarly, Slot will have been assessing whether or not he actually wanted to work with the three players or whether he felt that it was time to move them on and bring someone else in. As supporters we might think the very idea of that is mad, but for Slot he needs to think about what he’s working with in an entirely dispassionate manner.
Ages & New Challenges Present Issues
Watching Liverpool week-in, week-out, it seems as though Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk are timeless. The Egyptian has started this season in fine form, already racking up the assists and goals. Virgil, meanwhile, has led a defence that hasn’t conceded a goal, so he can easily claim to be at the same level he’s been at for the majority of his career.
Unfortunately, though, it isn’t as easy as just feeling they’re both playing brilliantly and so handing them a new contract. Salah is 32 and has plenty of miles in his legs, playing in a position where ‘peak’ will have already passed, however it looks to be from the outside looking in.
@lancashireladfootball Salah, Trent and Virgils contracts will now take priority at Liverpool FC 🔴⚽️🤝 #mosalah #trentalexanderarnold #virgilvandijk #liverpoolfc #fsg #contractextension #newcontracts #arneslot #michaeledwards #richardhughes #lancashireladfootball #fyp
In the case of van Dijk, he’s 33. Although defenders tend to hit their peak at an older age and it’s clear that he’s still got plenty of playing time left, the club will have all of the information regarding the fitness of both players and what they’re playing like compared to two or three years ago. Sadly, their performances are only going to get worse over time and the club will be assessing what it will mean to give them both new contracts and tying themselves down to paying them huge sums whilst getting less from them on the pitch.
There is little doubt that fans are going to be tied up in the emotion of wanting to keep them, but the club has to be more dead-eyed than that.
Then there is the situation with Trent Alexander-Arnold and what must undoubtedly be an extreme pull to head to Real Madrid and playing with his best mate Jude Bellingham, as well as players such as Kylian Mbappé, Vinicius Junior and Aurélien Tchouaméni.
Whilst we can all be confident that the pull of staying at his boyhood club will be there, I’m sure that the same was true of Steve McManaman when he left Anfield for the Bernabeu in 1999. Trent knows exactly what it will be like to stay at Liverpool and almost certainly become the club captain when van Dijk departs, but he also knows he can win huge amounts of silverware in Spain.
It might seem really simple from the point of view of supporters, but the reality is that there is a lot for the club to think about in terms of moving forward and the nature of each player is slightly different. Players have agency, so it might not be quite as easy to give them all new contracts as we think.
