Mohamed Salah has done the best thing possible by keeping quiet on a potential exit from Liverpool.
The Egyptian has been subject to intense interest from Saudi side Al Ittihad over the past few weeks. But throughout it all, Salah has remained quiet.
That may be frustrating for Liverpool fans, who would love to see their No.11 come out and nip it all in the bud. But speaking to ESPN FC, pundit Shaka Hislop praised Salah’s silence.
“As far as Salah goes, I think he’s played this absolutely perfectly, I don’t think he needs to say anything. Why should he, it’s out of his hands,” says the former goalkeeper.
“He’s staying at Liverpool, playing well for Liverpool, everybody at Liverpool is happy. He’s not saying anything, so the Saudis have no reason to think otherwise, to think any less of him, that they shouldn’t come back, for arguments sake in a year’s time with £150m.
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“For all the times that players have opened their mouths and done interviews or said something on social media that I think has come back to harm them, sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing.
“Salah for me is playing this perfectly, everybody is happy with their positions.”
Mo keeps quiet
The one party involved in this transfer that Hislop fails to mention is of course the Liverpool fans.
Okay, they’re not involved in the sense that there’s no active way of them swaying the deal one way or another. But it does affect them all the same.
And while Salah, Liverpool and Al Ittihad may be happy with radio silence from Mo’s end, fans do perhaps have a right not to be.
On the one hand, the Egypt captain has never come out and made any noise that he’s about to push for a move. As Hislop points out, that’s a good move and potentially a positive one from the Reds’ point of view.
But by not saying anything, Salah appears to endorse the transfer, fairly or not.
It would surely be very straightforward for Mo to come out and say that he’s categorically not leaving this year. That would still open the door for a future move, but would reassure fans of the club he’s made his name at that he’s not on his way.
It’s perhaps telling that Salah hasn’t done that. It’s true that he has in the past, so it isn’t outside his or his agent’s playbook. So, sorry Shaka, but we disagree here. Say something please, Mo.