Arsene Wenger is not confident that Paris Saint-Germain will manage to convince Kylian Mbappe to stay at the Ligue 1 club amid speculation linking him with Liverpool.
The forward has been consistently linked with a move to Anfield, but looked to be on the verge of signing for Real Madrid in the summer.
Real, it is claimed, failed with three bids for the Frenchman, who is out of contract at the Parc des Princes on 30 June, and is now free to agree a pre-contract agreement with clubs outside of France.
PSG have been looking to tie the World Cup winner to a new deal for some time, but it was claimed last month that those talks have now reached an impasse.
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And Wenger believes it is now going to be tough for the French club to tie Mbappe down to a new deal with the club.
"Time is against PSG," he told Canal +. "In my experience, when you try to renew a player then the longer it takes the more difficult it becomes.
"I've been waiting a year and a half for PSG to manage to renew Mbappe. He is the most indispensable player in PSG's way of playing.
“But, there is little time left and today the footballer is free to sign wherever he wants. PSG were in a situation where they had a firm offer from Real Madrid. When you reject 180 million euros, even for PSG it still is a huge sum.
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"So, when they refused this money, they either said to themselves 'We need to have a great season, as we have [Lionel] Messi and we can't afford to lose Mbappe' or they thought 'we will manage to convince him to stay'."
Speaking just last month, Mbappe described Mohamed Salah as 'one of the best players in the world' and has admitted he is a great admirer of the Liverpool forward.
He said: "To talk about Mohamed Salah, he's one of the best players in the world.
"He was the sixth finalist on the list at the Globe Soccer Awards [Men's Player of the Year] and has scored a lot of goals for Liverpool. He makes the difference and I love to watch him play. He is a great player."
