Graeme Souness has insisted that Mohamed Salah is "flirting" with a move to the Saudi Pro League, despite Liverpool rejecting a £150million bid
Saudi champions Al-Ittihad have made the Reds star their top target in recent days and firmed up their interest to make a formal bid on Friday. Liverpool rejected that offer
Souness says neither Salah nor his agent Ramy Abbas had publicly stated their desire for the future.
Now, with Ittihad preparing to return with a bumper £200m bid, Souness is concerned that Salah will leave
He highlighted the attacker's silence over recent weeks as hint that the attacker was considering joining the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Jordan Henderson.
Souness
"Make no mistake, Salah is flirting with the Saudis. Neither he nor one of his representatives has come out and categorically said 'We do not want to go to Saudi Arabia at this time'. If he wanted to stay, someone could have issued a statement to that effect,"
"He is toying with the idea, at the very least, and I think, deep down, he will feel he should go. The vast majority of Liverpool fans would be understandably aggrieved by that, though this is a sign of what lies ahead for the Premier League."
"The Saudis have infiltrated every level of British society in the last 50 years, so why not football? They are the big guys in the Middle East who play second fiddle to no one. They want big players, such as Salah, who will make people take notice of them."
"To them, the money is neither here nor there because they’ve got so much of it. If Saudi Arabia really wanted Salah, they could find a mechanism to buy Liverpool and transfer him the next day. Mark my words, this is a gravy train which has only just left the station and is a long way from its destination."
Abbas did move to deny any suggestions that his client will leave Anfield this summer earlier in August. At the time, he tweeted: "If we considered leaving LFC this year, we wouldn’t have renewed the contract last summer. Mohamed remains committed to LFC."
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