Nunez deal looks great but best bit of business would be a new contract for Mo
JURGEN KLOPP is close to clinching a club-record £85million deal for striker Darwin Nunez – but his best deal this summer would be for Mo Salah to sign a new contract.
If Liverpool unleash a front three of Nunez, Salah and Luis Diaz next season, they are going to take some stopping.
That’s a front line to take your breath away and give Premier League defenders sleepless nights.
With Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino in reserve, Klopp will have a super-strong hand to play – even if Nunez is earmarked as a possible replacement for Sadio Mane, who has been linked with Bayern Munich.
Champion teams always refresh and rebuild their squads from a position of strength, without waiting for decay to set in, and yet again Klopp appears to be getting his recruitment spot-on. But after Salah was voted Player of the Year by his peers in the PFA vote, Klopp’s best piece of business would arguably be to keep the Egyptian king at Anfield on a new contract beyond next season.
And although every team has a natural shelf life, and there comes a point where the manager has to press the ‘refresh’ button, I cannot believe Liverpool are prepared to lose Mane and Salah in the same window.
Klopp will be mindful that Mane is 30, and Salah reaches the same birthday next week, and the Kop has seen seamless regeneration on the front line before.
In the space of 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool went from Kevin Keegan and John Toshack to Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish and then John Barnes, Peter Beardsley and John Aldridge.
The cycle of change did not stop them dominating English football, but there is an art to refreshing your squad to keep them at the top, and making big changes before a team has come to the end of its time. I am convinced Klopp knows what’s left in his forwards’ tank – and he must not lose sight of the need to strengthen Liverpool’s midfield.
In the Champions League final, I thought Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Thiago looked a bit weary.
And you could argue that, in a match-up with champions Manchester City’s best midfield trio, Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Rodri are slightly more mobile and incisive as a unit.
But the best ‘signing’ of all would have to be keeping Salah beyond the last year of his contract.
If Liverpool can make it worth his while to stay, and shake hands on an upgraded deal, it would be the golden handshake for the man whose 23 goals in the Premier League this season won him the Golden Boot jointly with Tottenham’s Heung-min Son.