Egypt’s Salah wants to stay at Liverpool for the rest of his career

LONDON – Liverpool’s Egypt forward Mohamed Salah said that he would “love to stay” at the English Premier League club until he hangs up his boots but that his future at Anfield was not in his hands.

Salah, the league’s joint-top scorer this season with seven goals, has a contract with Liverpool until June 2023.

“If you ask me, I would love to stay until the last day of my football career. But I can’t say much about that, it’s not in my hands,” Salah, 29, told Sky Sports.

“It depends on what the club wants, not on me. At the moment I can’t see myself ever playing against Liverpool. That would make me sad.

“It’s hard, I don’t want to talk about it, but it would make me really sad… but let’s see what will happen in the future.”

Liverpool, second in the standings a point off Chelsea, on Sunday will travel to Manchester United, who is in sixth place and stand four points behind their arch-rivals after eight games.

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, meanwhile, said that he would always back Cristiano Ronaldo to score goals but conceded that Salah is in the form of his life ahead of Sunday’s Premier League derby at Old Trafford.

Salah leads the Premier League goal scoring charts with seven goals and also has four assists in eight games while he also has five strikes in the UEFA Champions League.

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp did not want to compare the two forwards but Solskjaer praised Salah and also his team mates on the frontline — Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota.

“I’ll always back Cristiano in any competition, he’s unique and his goalscoring record is fantastic but that being said, Salah is on fire,” Solskjaer told reporters.

“You see some of the goals he’s scored lately; we know we have to be at our best to defend against him. Players like him don’t come along very often. We have to enjoy these players from afar — not Sunday, that’s too close.

“Not just him, I’m a big admirer of their frontline for many, many years. Mane, Firmino, maybe Jota will play. They are players you should be focused on for 95 minutes to keep a clean sheet.”

Liverpool is the only unbeaten team in the league this season and has scored at least three goals in each of their last eight away games in all competitions.

“They’re on a great run of form, some individual skills that you cannot almost defend against but as a team, we have to be compact and aggressive,” Solskjaer added.

“It’s going to take everything to get results against one of the best teams in Europe, in the world. Liverpool is one of those teams at the moment.

“What they’ve done the last four years is what we’re striving towards. We ended up above them last season; they had a bad spell with injuries last year but are now back to their best.”

Solskjaer said two or three players will be given time to prove their fitness for Sunday’s clash after suffering “knocks and bruises” in the midweek Champions League victory over Atalanta, adding playmaker Bruno Fernandes is a doubt.

“We’ll give everyone time; we might have the whole squad back fit. Yes, Bruno might be a doubt but he’s doing everything he can to be ready,” Solskjaer said.