Fabrizio Romano has heaped praise onto Liverpool for their strong and firm stance over Mohamed Salah amid transfer interest from Saudi Pro League club Al Ittihad.
The Egypt international had been strongly linked with a possible late move away from Liverpool, but, writing in his exclusive CaughtOffside column, Romano clarified the situation.
Liverpool had a difficult summer losing the likes of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi clubs, and a late departure for someone as important as Salah would have been a disaster.
Still, the Reds managed to keep hold of the 31-year-old, and Romano has praised them for always being calm and clear over their star player.
“The situation is calm on Mohamed Salah,” Romano said. “He scored for Liverpool in the win over Aston Villa after the news that the Reds rejected a very big offer from Al Ittihad, though some sources close to the Saudi Pro League believe that they will return for Salah.
“However, now it is almost impossible to imagine Liverpool selling Salah, so it would probably be in 2024. They accept that Liverpool won’t sell the player now, but they will be back in the future.
“Still, we have to respect what Liverpool did because they turned down more than £100m for Salah when many people in the media were expecting this deal could go through, with some arguing that maybe they had to let a player of his age go for that kind of money. But it shows Liverpool’s stance both in public and in private, they always said he was untouchable.
“Liverpool will surely have no regrets – they are very happy with Salah, who continues to perform and to score goals, as always. Liverpool have been very strong and very clear on this, and their reward is to keep a top player who remains a key part of the project.”
Liverpool will now hope their midfield rebuild can help them enjoy a better season than the one they had last year, with Jurgen Klopp surely under pressure to get the Merseyside giants back into the top four again, and ideally challenging for major trophies as well.