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Which way will Salah go?
Published in Al-Ahram Weekly on 01 - 03 - 2018

This is one big question now following the week in, week out performances of Egypt's super football star Mohamed Salah as he keeps dazzling in the Premier League with Liverpool. Will he stay or will he leave? The winger bagged his 31st goal of the season this week as he scored his side's second goal in the 4-1 demolition of West Ham to make it three goals in two games against the London side in the league this season.
Salah also notched an assist as his perfect corner was met by Emre Can to open the scoring for his side while goals from Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane completed the score line for the home side.
The following morning Spanish reports once again claimed that Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane is interested in signing Salah to replace either Gareth Bale or Karim Benzema as rumours of them leaving are very much realistic given their struggles this season, especially Benzema who has been consistently booed by his own fans every single game for some time now.
However, would Salah really want to leave Liverpool after one season? Would Liverpool actually let him go given his obvious importance to the team especially after the sale of Coutinho? Would Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp let his best player and main source of goals leave even for a world record fee? All these questions are surrounding our star man given that he's playing some unbelievable football at the moment and scoring for fun in both the Champions League and the league and against any team regardless of the name of the opponent.
All the indicators say Salah will 100 per cent stay at Liverpool for at least one more season if not more and one can easily see the reasons why. First, there is no way Klopp would let his best player leave, especially with the German manager building a magnificent team that is slowly getting back to their glory days and with Salah already the most important piece of Klopp's puzzle.
Second, the club is very rich and even a world record fee wouldn't tempt them to sell after one season particularly if they managed to finish in the top four — they are third right now — and ensure Champions League football next season.
Third, they already sold one of their star men Coutinho to Barcelona in January for 140 million euros and have not spent his money since which again confirms that money will never be the deciding factor if Salah leaves one day. Fourth and most importantly is what Salah himself wants. Fan favorite Mo Salah as they call him in England made it clear several times that he wants to stay in the Premiership for some time because he believes it's by far the best league in the world. Moreover, he's very well settled and happy at both Liverpool and under Klopp who took him to a completely new level and made him the player everyone is talking about today. For all these reasons, the signs say that Salah will definitely be an LFC player next season. But still, you never know what could happen the next day when it comes to football nowadays.
As for Salah's biggest challenge this season: doing the undoable and beating Harry Kane to the league's top scorer award. We're saying impossible for two reasons. First, Kane of Tottenham won the scoring title with ease the last two seasons and is still on course to win it this season as his last-minute winner against Palace last week ensured he stayed one goal ahead of Salah with 24 goals. Second and more importantly is that Kane is one of the best strikers in the world today if not the best while Salah is not even a striker.
Despite that, Salah is having a miraculous season and is already considered one of the best signings in the history of the Premier League as he breaks record after record since signing for Liverpool, but beating Kane to the top scorer would just be out of this world.


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