And so the long goodbye begins for Mohamed Salah after he announced he will leave Liverpool at the end of the season on Tuesday night. In an agreement with Liverpool, the forward will depart on a free transfer this summer despite having 12 months remaining on his contract.
The 33-year-old arrived at Anfield from Roma in 2017 and has scored 255 goals to make him the club’s third all-time leading goalscorer. Salah has also lifted two Premier League titles along with a Champions League, FA Cup and two Carabao Cups during his time with the Reds.
Plenty have been quick to pay tribute to the Egypt international, and we have rounded what the national media have had to say.
Writing in The Times, Paul Joyce said: “Sometimes you cannot help but wonder at what might have been.
“It is remarkable to contemplate now, when attempting to encapsulate the Liverpool career of a player who has scaled so many dizzying heights and helped transform an entire institution, that Mohamed Salah was actually the back-up plan.
“If things had worked out differently in the summer of 2017, Julian Brandt, the Bayer Leverkusen winger at the time, would have arrived at Anfield instead.”
The former Daily Post scribe then continued: “That he is going out on his own terms, an absolute great of the club, is the very least he deserves. The send-off on the final Sunday of the season, when Brentford come to Anfield, will be something to behold. Do not bet against him crowning it with another goal. Perhaps clarity will have a galvanising effect between now and then.
“Of course, Salah’s parting feels like the end of an era for Liverpool. A golden era that has been overlooked during the difficulties Slot’s side have endured this season. There has been a hankering for the past when, really, this is a squad that can no longer deal in the jaw-dropping acts that were once routine.”
Jonathan Wilson of TheThe Guardian wrote: “Salah is 33 and time is sapping at his legs. Liverpool are moving on: if the summer spree was undertaken with any single plan in mind, it was presumably to play with two central forwards and Wirtz in behind, which is not a system in which Salah naturally fits. There was a sense at times that this was a post-Salah side that somehow still featured Salah.
“His departure has felt inevitable from the moment he stopped in the mixed zone after Liverpool’s 3‑3 draw at Leeds in December and, clearly smarting at repeatedly being left out, spoke of how he had “no relationship” with Arne Slot. Which, if nothing else, was a reminder of how vital relationships are in football, not only with managers but with other players.
“Salah was fortunate during his Liverpool peak to be part of two great trios at once. There was the forward line, with Sadio Mané and Robert Firmino, but there was also the right side, with Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander‑Arnold. Among his many gifts as a manager, perhaps Jürgen Klopp’s greatest strength was his capacity to find internal balance and harmony.”
Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool at the end of the season and Fanatics has cut the price of this season's kits with 'M. Salah 11' printing.
Former ECHO reporter Beth Lindop, now of ESPN, wrote: “Over the past nine years, Salah has become a cultural phenomenon. To a generation, he is Liverpool Football Club, with his importance extending far beyond the realms of the sport itself. In 2019, the Egypt international was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, having been named among the most 100 influential people in the world.
“In 2020, he was honoured with a wax statue at London's Madame Tussauds. In 2021, a study in the American Political Science Review determined Salah's transfer to Liverpool had led to a 16% reduction in hate crimes in the city, as well as reducing Islamophobic online rhetoric.
“There is barely a corner of Merseyside that is not in some way marked by the Liverpool forward, whether that be with an elaborate piece of street art or by the sight of a child with his name emblazoned on the back of their shirt. He has become woven into the tapestry of the region, and his legacy will endure long after he says his Anfield farewells.
“From a football perspective, Salah's impending exit leaves Liverpool with a huge void to fill. The Egyptian has failed to live up to his own impossibly high standards this term -- his current tally of 10 goals in 34 games puts him on course for his least productive season in a red shirt -- and yet it is still almost impossible to imagine Liverpool without him.”
Recalling an iconic Mohamed Salah, another former ECHO scribe, now of the Daily Mail, Dominig King wrote: “The first Premier League goal he scored at Anfield looked like a scene from a computer game. It was also a moment that made you think that Liverpool had signed someone a little bit special for £36.9million, given the speed, composure and certainty he displayed.
“From an Arsenal corner, Liverpool turned defence into attack and Salah ran from his own half, three blue shirts chasing haplessly like leaden-footed policemen. The closer he got to The Kop, you knew he was going to score. He did. And he would keep on doing it.”
John Cross of the Daily Mirror wrote: “And his departure will also raise a very obvious and difficult question: who is the face of the Premier League now?
“Salah, 33, has been that player throughout his time at Anfield. He is a global superstar, the biggest name, the biggest draw arguably the biggest talent.
“Down the years, we have had Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Eric Cantona, Harry Kane, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero.
“Now we do have Erling Haaland who is the poster boy of the Premier League and the Manchester City star will break goal records for as long as he stays in English football. But who else is there? England’s best two players, Kane and Jude Bellingham, play abroad. Lionel Messi never came to England and Ronaldo is destined to retire in Saudi Arabia.
“It is a crying shame but also a harsh reality that, once Salah departs, the Premier League will lack genuine stardust. They flock to La Liga with Real Madrid and Barcelona rather than come to English football. There has been a talent drain.
“It is a genuine concern that, with the exit of the all-time greats, the Premier League will be missing world class talent.”
While here at the ECHO, our Liverpool correspondent, Paul Gorst wrote: “Most of the gleaming baubles, golden boots and winners medals that shimmered behind him, as he told the world of his end-of-season plans, were earned as a Liverpool player.
“Those symbols of success were confirmation enough of how good Salah has been for most of this past decade, but cold, hard silverware only tells half the story for supporters who have loved him like few others.
“For the past nine seasons fans have sung loud and proud about their Egyptian King, running down the wing and with the return of domestic action coming in early April, opportunities to continue doing just that will now be fleeting for Liverpool's fanbase.”
Before he concluded: “In a region informally known to some as the People's Republic of Merseyside, many Liverpudlians have a complicated relationship with the monarchy. The Egyptian King, however, was good enough for them to make an exception.”
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