Mohamed Salah facing biggest challenge yet as Liverpool star looks to delay the inevitable

Mohamed Salah facing biggest challenge yet as Liverpool star looks to delay the inevitable

Mohamed Salah remains Liverpool's star player after signing a new contract back in April - but the Reds will soon have to find a way to win without him

Mohamed Salah wears the new Liverpool home shirt.

Mohamed Salah has already broken yet another record ahead of the 2025/26 season. Mightily impressive, wouldn’t you say, given he managed to do so without even kicking a ball.

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Okay, the latest accolade is rather more trivial than the majority of his previous feats during a goal and trophy-laden eight years at Anfield.

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Ahead of the new season, the Premier League revealed that the Liverpool star had been priced up at £14.5m on its popular Fantasy Football game. The most expensive player going in this year’s edition, such a total is the highest-ever opening cost for a midfielder in the game - overtaking Cristiano Ronaldo’s starter price of £14m in 2008/09.

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For context, the then 23-year-old had just returned 42 goals and eight assists from 49 appearances in all competitions as he fired Manchester United to Premier League and Champions League glory in 2007/08. Such efforts would also earn him his Ballon d’Or.

Of all the Ronaldo records Salah thrives to beat, admittedly a record Fantasy Premier League price will not place highly.

But it does reiterate just how incredible his form was for the Reds last season, with only a premature Champions League exit removing him from the conversation when it comes to discussing this year’s Ballon d’Or favourites.

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Making 52 appearances, the forward returned 34 goals and 23 assists. With 48 of those goal contributions coming in the English top-flight, equalling the record in a single Premier League campaign, he inevitably smashed the record for the most points in a FPL season last term too.

Now a two-time Premier League champion after Arne Slot’s men stormed to the title, the individual honours piled up once again.

Winning a hat-trick of Premier League Player of the Season, a joint-record fourth Golden Boot and his second playmaker award, he was also named both FWA Footballer of the Year for a joint-record third time. A record third PFA Players' Player of the Year award will also surely follow.

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Like a fine wine, Salah continues to get better with age. He remains not only Liverpool’s star player but the best footballer in the Premier League.

Yet last season he was motivated by the possibility of it being his last season with the Reds. It was not until April when he signed a new two-year extension, at a time when he had just just two months left to run on his existing deal.

Salah admitted more than once throughout the campaign that he had a burning desire to win another Premier League title, and celebrate with supporters after being denied by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, at a time when he knew he might never get another opportunity.

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Had an extension not been agreed, the Egyptian also admitted he would have accepted a lucrative move to the Saudi Pro League. Instead, the show goes on at Anfield. But for how much longer?

The Egyptian has enjoyed a remarkable upward trajectory throughout his career to date. But now heading towards his mid-thirties, a natural decline, no matter how big or small, will surely rear its head at some point.

Only time will tell how long he can continue to consistently deliver at such devastating heights. A betting man would assume that, logically, the 33-year-old has just signed his last Liverpool contract.

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So it will be down to Salah to delay that inevitable move to the Saudi Pro League that little bit longer. As was proven to be the case last season, for as long as he delivers like this, there has to be a place for him at Anfield.

In truth the forthcoming campaign has the potential to be the 33-year-old’s most memorable yet.

With Liverpool spending close to £300m on the arrivals of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Armin Pecsi and Freddie Woodman before the end of July - with more new arrivals expected - the Reds certainly mean business.

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They will head into the season as both defending Premier League champions and title favourites, hungry to become the first Liverpool side to win back-to-back titles since 1984.

But such ambition will go beyond just the English top-flight. Having been stung by their early Champions League exit to eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool will already have one eye on pursuing their seventh European crown.

Elsewhere for Salah, the Africa Cup of Nations awaits in Morocco in December and January. A two-time runner-up, and after seeing his last participation in the tournament ended prematurely by injury, he will be desperate to clinch that elusive continental crown.

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And then there is the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada next summer. Knocked out on penalties to Senegal in the qualifying third round in 2022, with Salah missing in the shootout only months after losing to the same opposition in the Africa Cup of Nations final, the Pharaohs will be determined to qualify this time around.

With an expanded 48-team tournament awaiting, their hopes have already been bolstered. They currently sit top of their group, five points clear of second-place Burkina Faso with six of their 10 games played, and automatic qualification within their grasp.

Still stung at being hindered by the Sergio Ramos-inflicted shoulder injury suffered in the 2018 Champions League final when representing Egypt at that year’s World Cup in Russia - having scored the goals to fire his country to the finals for the first time in 1990 in the first place - Salah very much has unfinished business on the international stage.

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Of course, these are the tournaments that will ultimately determine if Salah can become the first African since George Weah in 1995 to win the Ballon d’Or.

Pursuing the biggest honours for club and country, he knows what he will have to do to stay in that conversation. Replicate his form from last season and that dream could become reality.

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Yet Salah also has to contend with something that has haunted him in the past - a post-AFCON hangover and drop off in form during the second half of the season.

Perhaps Liverpool’s spending spree can help to manage such issues. In the past, the forward has been the first name on the teamsheet - as demonstrated by him being an ever-present in the Premier League last season.

But now 33, the time will come when he has to be managed a little bit more carefully. And Slot is cautiously edging towards having such additional attacking options, with Wirtz, Ekitike and Frimpong all helping to bolster the Reds’ ranks in the final third.

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Of course, Salah will not be an ever-present for Liverpool this season, with his chances of smashing Reds scoring records hindered as a result.

He could miss as many as 10 matches due to his participation in the Africa Cup of Nations, including the entire Premier League festive period.

Should Egypt reach the final, he will sit out six matches in the English top-flight - including trips to both Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. It is not ideal for Liverpool but, while rare, it is also not the first time they have had to find a way to win without their Egyptian King.

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He remains his side’s star man, but a successor has potentially already emerged in the ranks after the Reds committed to spending a club-record fee worth up to £116m for Wirtz. There has not been this much excitement around a new Liverpool signing since Fernando Torres in 2007.

Should the 22-year-old live up to the hype at Anfield, there will come a time when he is regarded as the Reds’ star player. But, for now, Wirtz remains just the heir to Salah’s long-held Liverpool throne.

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