Here is your Liverpool morning digest for Friday, February 11.
Mohamed Salah contract leaves Liverpool with £70m Nike question
What Mohamed Salah brings to Liverpool on the pitch is undeniable, writes Dave Powell.
Liverpool's most prized asset has yet to commit his long term future to the Reds with the two parties still in negotiations over a new deal that would make the 29-year-old the highest paid player in Liverpool history.
Few would argue that he would deserve that title based on his form and what he brings to this Liverpool team, his £36.5m transfer fee in 2017 having turned into 148 goals, a Champions League crown and the 2020 Premier League title.
The numbers on the next Salah contract will be big, but for such an impactful player operating at the height of his powers he is now working on the very highest of levels where the money follows suit.
Salah's presence in the Liverpool team helps their cause considerably when it comes to on-pitch success, with such things as Champions League football and subsequent success in the competition worth hundreds of millions to Liverpool.
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Off the pitch he has turned into an enormously marketable athlete who allows Liverpool reach into new markets. An African star and the most prominent Muslim footballer on the planet, Salah has huge commercial appeal.
And such appeal has seen him place among the top five in terms of player shirts sold in the world over the past 12 months, something that acts as a boost to the incentivised nature of Liverpool's kit deal with Nike, one that is worth a guaranteed £30m per season but that holds its true value in the 20 per cent that the Reds receive on the sale of Nike/Liverpool merchandise globally.
That is something that could make the deal worth as much as £70m per year to the Reds.
And a good chunk of those shirt sales have been driven by Salah, with data provided by the FIFA authorised Euromericas Marketing Agency showing that the Egyptian sold the fourth most shirts in 2021, with 'Salah 11' having sold 816,000.
That figure put him behind only Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski (970,000), Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo (1.05m) and Lionel Messi of Paris Saint-Germain (1.2m). He was ahead of the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kante, Kevin De Bruyne and Neymar, who all made up the top 10 list.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
Liverpool signing £17m Bayern Munich flop could spark midfield revolution
Some transfer stories are destined to recirculate every six months or so, writes Andrew Beasley.
It’s always hard to know whether the interest from the potential buying club is genuine and sustained, with them biding their time to make their move, or if agents are trying to raise their player’s profile ahead of the next window.
As far back as 2015 Adama Traore was reportedly heading to Liverpool for a medical, and if he doesn’t make a permanent move to Barcelona he’ll likely be linked with the Reds once again.
And the situation appears to be similar for Lille’s Renato Sanches, who was heavily rumoured to be on his way to Anfield last summer.
As Sanches’ current contract expires in the summer of 2023, the next transfer window will represent Lille’s last chance to charge a decent fee for the 24-year-old.
He’s also the perfect age to move to Liverpool, at least based on their transfer activity in recent times.
While there have been exceptions such as Thiago Alcantara, the vast majority of signings have been between 23 and 25 years old, and Sanches will have just turned 25 when next season gets underway.
There’s also some evidence that he may now be ready to make the step up to one of Europe’s leading clubs, at least in one regard.
For the third season in a row, Sanches has created five clear-cut chances (those where you would expect the attacker to score) in Ligue 1, though of course 2021/22 is only a little past the half way point.
He has provided one of these golden opportunities every 187 minutes, a rate only Trent Alexander-Arnold (one every 148 minutes) and Mohamed Salah (162) from the Liverpool squad have bettered this season.
Sanches’ expected assists per 90 currently stands at 0.21 per 90 minutes, when it was 0.11 and 0.15 in the last two seasons respectively.
This puts him ahead of any of Jurgen Klopp’s current midfield options in 2021/22 for this metric, and he’s in front of every Liverpool player bar Alexander-Arnold when it comes to completing open play passes into the opposition penalty area.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
