LIVERPOOL — Jurgen Klopp says he knows for a fact that Mohamed Salah will be a Liverpool player next season.
Salah is the currently the Premier League’s top scorer and with 39 goals in all competitions following his summer move from Roma.
Klopp recently told Bild that he had no worries about the possibility of the forward leaving, but the Liverpool manager was unequivocal when speaking at a news conference on Friday.
“It’s not a situation I would even think about,” Klopp said. “Around nine months ago he came in to make the next step in his career — and he did it. To come to Liverpool, he had different options and he wanted to come here.
“If we now always start talking after a year and is it will he leave or whatever, then I don’t think about. It was in the German interview and he asked me pretty much the same question. Yes, I’m confident. I don’t think — I know he will be here.”
Klopp said that the questions surrounding Salah’s future have only come up because reporters need to produce content.
“We have a big chance here to create something for the future,” he said. “In the moment we have to deliver performances, collecting points, winning.
“The age group of the team is really good. We are still young and full of potential and all that stuff. My impression at the moment is that they are all excited about being in this group.”
Salah, who will return to Roma for the Champions League semifinal tie in early May, seems content with life at Liverpool after having told CNN that playing for the club is “very special.”
The 25-year-old is the running to become PFA Player of the Year and is currently on course to win the Premier League’s Golden Boot, with Salah’s 29 league goals giving him a four-goal margin over Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane.
The gap would have been five had it not been for Spurs’ successful appeal to the Premier League for the second goal in the 2-1 win at Stoke City to be awarded to Kane after it had originally been credited to Christian Eriksen.
Salah, along with some of his Liverpool teammates, appeared to react with surprise on social media at the decision.
“I’m in football since ages and I know how strikers are,” Klopp said. “If he felt the touch then he felt the touch. I don’t doubt Harry Kane a little bit.
“Mo is the same kind of person. You score a goal [then] you score a goal — that’s how it is. I’m still not sure who scored the goal at Maribor when Roberto [Firmino] and Mo went both in, but I saw both celebrating. It’s good because [we] scored in the end. I think that’s normal and it’s not about me to judge that or whatever.
“[Kane is] a fantastic player. I don’t know him as a person, but he looks like a good guy as well. Strikers are different, they have to be different and we all like it. In this case, it was not obvious. But how I said, if he felt it then he felt it.”
Glenn is ESPN FC’s Liverpool correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter: @GlennPrice94.
Be the first to comment