Liverpool stance on Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk before crucial January date
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Remarkably Arne Slot has watched his Liverpool side win TWENTY ONE of his first 25 matches in charge. It has been a spectacular start for the ex-Feyenoord boss since he replaced Jurgen Klopp at the helm, with no manager having won 20 games quicker while in charge of an English top-flight club than the Dutchman - for the historian’s among you, Preston’s William Sudell also won 20 of his first 24 in the same game-span in 1888-89.
After Sunday’s 6-3 thrashing of Spurs, Liverpool are top of the Premier League, top of the Champions League standings and have a Carabao Cup semi-final in the diary. Yet, unusually, they have three marquee players out of contract at the end of the season. And not just three marquee players … the best player, the captain and the vice-captain.
So what is the current state of play with Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, and will they be at Anfield next season?. Are any of the three players likely to sign a pre-contract with a non-English club on January 1?. As their contracts expire at the end of this season, the trio are free to speak to non-English clubs from January 1 onwards and can even sign a pre-contract agreement with another team. But that last-case scenario is extremely unlikely to happen. Even if any one of them is leaning towards an Anfield exit, they will not formalise it before their domestic and European campaigns are concluded.
While Salah caused a bit of a kerfuffle with a recent interview in which he suggested he was ‘more out than in’, all parties are determined to make the process as respectful as possible. Van Dijk insisted after Sunday’s win at Spurs that there “is no deadline” - but January 1 is approaching fast.
