2 months ago
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Photo by Ben Peters/MB Media/Getty Images
The rumour that refuses to die now has a value attached.
As Liverpool’s first season under their new manager has gotten off to a flying start despite a quiet transfer window, Reds fans have had to find a tertiary channel for their anxieties, and contracts is the name of the game, with Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk all entering the final year of their deals with the club.
The natural next step when imagining a star player leaving the club, then, is picturing what comes next, and in the case of Salah, whose deal has entered its final year on previous occasions, options have already been established.
Bryan Mbeumo is a pacy left-footed attacker who does his best work cutting inside from the right, which is fundamentally indistinguishable from a very broad strokes description of the Egyptian Prince, and since the Cameroonian plies his trade for a selling club in Brentford, he will always be available for the right price should any of the league’s top clubs come calling.
The right price is reportedly set at £40m by the Bees, in the current climate a shockingly reasonable fee if we’re being honest, especially since the player still has two years left on a deal that allegedly also contains the option of a one-year extension, but the transfer boffins on Merseyside have never turned their nose up at a good deal.
Whether Mbeumo possesses the sufficient quality to successfully replace Salah — a living Liverpool legend and one of the best attackers the Premier League has ever seen — is a question worth asking, but until the man himself signs a contract extension or the club signs a successor, this particular rumour won’t be going anywhere.
