Thread by @babuyagu

The unescapable reality of the Salah situation is:-

- We need to give him a new deal
* but doing so may mean pay bumps across the board and we may end up no longer having revenue to cover our wages

- Or we sell him in the summer

- Or we lose him for free the following summer.

Those are literally the only 3 options and people making out like it is a simple thing and just give him whatever are perhaps not considering the knockon effect.

Do guys like Virg, Ali, Trent, Hendo etc have parity clauses in their contract. Maybe not to be the highest earner

but to say that they never earn <75% what the highest earner does.

And even if not, does it create a problem when you come to renegotiate with guys like Firmino & Mane and new signings in the future. Suddenly the upper limit in wages isn't 200k but 500k+.

Saying to Mane you

will get paid 90% of what our highest earner does is one thing. Saying you will receive 40% of what they do is another thing entirely.

I honestly don't know the answers here - just know there are only possible 3 outcomes. I know the outcome I want but also know it isn't as

simple as people are perhaps dressing that up to be. The cynic in me thinks that is to give them justification to be outraged when they don't get what they want because it was a 'simple' thing.

On the 2nd option - selling him. The question is always 'how do you replace him'. And I have no idea how. If I did I would be earning a bundle as a recruitment analyst at Liverpool. Here is why:-

Nobody would suggest replacing 2021/22 Salah with 2015 Salah from Serie A. His

output is good and scaleable but nobody is saying 'that due will score 40 next season'. Just in the same way nobody was saying Jota would be an output machine for us. I liked both players and wanted them here but I didn't see their upper-level being what it currently is.

Because players are coachable. And Klopp has a talent for turning the right kinda guys into output machines. Look at the production line of forwards in his career he has done that with. Listen to Lewandowski talk about how crucial he was in his career for that.

So we are looking at what players are. He is looking and seeing what he can make them become.

And that is why - god forbid - if Salah were to leave, I would trust our recruitment guys & Klopp to replace him. Not because it is an easy task, but simply because they seem to know

what they are doing.

But make no mistake - it is also the toughest challenge they have faced in Klopp's time here and imperative to get right. And you would like to do that without the pressure of it being make-or-break. If you can keep Salah here AND nurture through a

replacement then that would be ideal.

But then recruitment is never ideal at football clubs. No matter how good you are, how organised you are, how far in advance you are planning - life throws curve balls at you and you end up having to react to them when it does.

https://twitter.com/ScouseSocialism/status/1445377270256910340

Contract length is also a big thing here.

We have no idea what a 32 year old Salah looks like. Is he going to be a 500k a week player for 3 more years after that? Does tying up so much of our wages in that situation actually a long-term problem?

And if you think about this in terms of the mitigating risk... is there a point where a new deal is a bigger risk than trying to replace him with a <24 year old high output guy?

Again - I don't know the answers. But these are things we will be considering. It isn't simple.

I think the best solution for Liverpool is an even more incentivised contract. Wages stay similar to the team but massive bonuses based on playing and output. If he suddenly becomes riddled with injuries (see Aguero) we can take the hit. If his output falls off, his cost does

also.

But from Salah's pov, why take that deal when you could treble your basic salary and financial stability for your family forever at PSG or other - essentially what Gini did and I have absolutely no problems with players making this choice. They are employees with short

careers. They need to maintain their current quality of life for ~50 years after they stop earning and also set their children up in the same way.

So at some point making sure you have a massive nest-egg is important. Fair play. We all do - theirs is just on a bigger scale.

https://twitter.com/Bami_Mave/status/1445385673796689920

Seeing a lot of this. Here is the thing - neither of those deals radically changes the entire payment structure of the club. And we can solve a problem if either contract needs to be wrote off - it isn't ideal but we can somewhat take the hit.

There is a MASSIVE difference between giving Hendo a couple more years on a ~150k a week deal and giving Salah a 500k a week deal.

The main one, of course, being that there is no knock-on problems from one and the other means you fundamentally change how the club operates in

terms of everyone being in it together. No big stars. Nobody earning multiples of everyone else.

You have Virg finishing 2nd in Ballon d'Or votes earning 40% of what the highest earner at the club does - how you feel about that if you are Virg? And that is the problem.

We just don't know. We don't know what problems that could cause us - but to just saw everyone would be fine with it is oversimplifying.

And should the worst happen and Salah starts becoming an injury-prone wreck in his early 30s, how do we absorb that problem?

Again.. I am not saying he WILL just that you need to have ways to mitigating the risk. And here would have no way to do so. Because then our entire clubs success is tied to that guy staying fit, on form and putting up numbers for the duration.

Muting the thread now as replies fall into the category of:-
- things I already answered in the thread
- strawman arguments
- similar to comments I already replied to and therefore repeating myself.

So before you reply, search around my timeline as you likely find my reply to

your tweet. And regardless I probably won't see your reply as I have muted the conversation so don't feel like I have ignored a question when it doesn't get replied.

Thanks.