Virgil van Dijk Reveals His Liverpool Future With Mohamed Salah Message

Van Dijk and Salah have had their futures come under scrutiny.

Mohamed Salah (left) and Virgil van Dijk will both be out of contract in summer 2027. | OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk pleaded with his “good friend” Mohamed Salah to stay on Merseyside with him next season as the pair head towards the final year of their contracts.

Salah’s future was cast in doubt by a very public falling out with manager Arne Slot in December. The prolific winger had been dropped to the bench for the first time in his Liverpool career and teased a January exit. A resolution was belatedly struck and Salah has started every match since returning from international duty with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations last month.

Nevertheless, whispers of Salah’s exit persist—unless the club agree to another contract extension, this will be the final summer in which they can extract a fee for the 33-year-old. Van Dijk finds himself in the same position having agreed to a two-year extension a week after Salah in April 2025.

“[Mo is] the same as me—he’s got one more year [left on his contract] so we will see,” Van Dijk told assembled reporters after Saturday’s 3–0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion.

“I always want Mo to stay because I’m a good friend of his and we’ve been through the highs and not-so-highs—I don’t want to call them lows—together for so many years. Mo is a very important Liverpool player who has set the bar extremely high. I can only say for us nothing has changed.

“There are so many things people don’t see what is important to try to become a successful team. Let’s see for the rest of the season how important he still is and can be.”

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Two modern Liverpool greats. | OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images

Slot has already proven this season that he is willing to contemplate a world without Salah. Liverpool were unbeaten in the 10 Premier League fixtures which the Egyptian winger didn’t start between November and January, but only four of those games were won.

Having been bitten by the openness of his system across the first few months of the new season, Slot dialled down the tempo and sought to control possession—many of Liverpool’s opponents were all too happy to give them the ball, huddling back into a low block which boggled the Dutch boss’s brain.

Dominik Szoboszlai was most commonly called upon to fill in for Salah on the right wing in his absence yet, given his superb performances in central midfield (and right back and anywhere else he is called upon) Slot would surely be keen to keep his star man in the middle.

There is clearly no faith from Slot in Federico Chiesa as a starter while Cody Gakpo and Rio Ngumoha inspire mixed emotions from their favoured left flank, let alone the right. Should Salah leave this summer, a new right winger is a must.

Liverpool have already taken some steps to replace Van Dijk—although that may be a more testing prospect.

The towering Dutchman turns 35 this summer and is still utterly integral to Liverpool. Van Dijk has started 37 of the club’s 39 fixtures across all competitions, racking up an unrivalled 3,330 minutes. “Vital” is the word that Slot has routinely turned to when describing his skipper.

Weening off this Van Dijk addiction will be painful—especially if Ibrahima Konaté follows through on his threat of leaving the club this summer. However, Liverpool have already bought Van Dijk’s replacement—twice.

Giovanni Leoni was snapped up last summer as a signing for the future. Boasting the physicality of his new teammates, the teenage Italian should have spent the current campaign playing and learning alongside Van Dijk and Konaté. An ACL tear in September scuppered those ambitions.

And so Liverpool bought Jérémy Jacquet in January. The talented young Frenchman would have been useful this season but will still have at least 12 months to take tips off Van Dijk when he joins in the summer.

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