Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk publicly appealed to Mohamed Salah to remain at the club as both players move into the final year of their contracts. With Salah 33 and available for a fee this summer unless a fresh extension is agreed, Van Dijk stressed the value of continuity around the dressing room.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Mo is] the same as me\u2014he\u2019s got one more year [left on his contract] so we will see,\u201d Van Dijk told assembled reporters after Saturday\u2019s 3\u20130 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk, who signed a two-year extension a week after Salah in April 2025, described their partnership and the wider importance of team stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always want Mo to stay because I\u2019m a good friend of his and we\u2019ve been through the highs and not-so-highs\u2014I don\u2019t want to call them lows\u2014together for so many years. Mo is a very important Liverpool player who has set the bar extremely high. I can only say for us nothing has changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many things people don\u2019t see what is important to try to become a successful team. Let\u2019s see for the rest of the season how important he still is and can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arne Slot has already shown he can entertain a system without Salah. Liverpool were unbeaten in the 10 Premier League fixtures the winger did not start between November and January, but only four of those games were wins. After early-season openness, Slot reduced tempo and prioritised possession to counter opponents who parked a low block.<\/p>\n
Dominik Szoboszlai most often filled the right wing role in Salah\u2019s absence, though his standout displays in central midfield and at right back mean Slot may prefer to keep him in the middle. The manager appears to have limited faith in Federico Chiesa as a starter, while Cody Gakpo and Rio Ngumoha have produced mixed returns from the left. Should Salah depart, recruiting a right winger would be essential.<\/p>\n
Liverpool have already taken steps to replace Van Dijk, though that could be a tougher task. The towering Dutchman turns 35 this summer and remains integral: he has started 37 of the club\u2019s 39 fixtures across all competitions, logging 3,330 minutes. \u201cVital\u201d is the word that Slot has routinely turned to when describing his skipper. Weaning the side off Van Dijk will be uncomfortable, particularly if Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 follows through on his threat of leaving the club this summer. However, Liverpool have already bought Van Dijk\u2019s replacement\u2014twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Dijk urges Mohamed Salah to stay as both enter final contract year; Liverpool weigh options. fee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[983,1006,1393],"class_list":["post-6900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-agents","tag-captaincy","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}