Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has 18 months left on his current deal and remains in discussions over extending his stay; Egypt international recently made it clear he did not want to leave the Premier League but said it was up to the club to resolve his situation
Monday 6 December 2021 17:39, UK
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp remains relaxed about Mohamed Salah's contract negotiations, insisting "what we all want is clear".
Salah has 18 months left on his current deal and remains in discussions over extending his stay.
In a recent interview with Egyptian TV channel MBC Masr, he made it clear he did not want to leave the Premier League but said it was up to the club to resolve his situation.
Klopp said last week there had been no update on talks and Barcelona head coach Xavi has reportedly expressed his interest in the forward.
Speaking ahead of Liverpool's trip to AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday, Klopp said: "We are talking. Extending a contract with a player like Mo is not a thing you do over a cup of tea in the afternoon and find an agreement.
"This is completely normal. There's really nothing else to say. Mo speaks about it when he gets asked about it. I can say only a few things because the rest is not for the public.
"Mo is fine, I'm fine. What we all want is clear and things like this take time. That's it."
Klopp admits he has to rotate his players for their final Champions League group match for fear of retribution from his medical department.
After five matches in 15 days, the Liverpool boss is wary of overloading his most-used players ahead of what is a busy festive programme.
Salah is six goals away from breaking the record for the most Champions League goals for one English club, but Klopp would not confirm whether the 29-year-old would feature in Italy.
"We have to rotate, that's clear," Klopp said. "The medical department would smash me if I played the same side again so we will make changes.
"I will not give away the line-up now but I cannot change all the players. We will see if Mo plays or not and if he plays, whether he can score or not, but the players have an understanding of the situation. We want to field the best possible side for the situation we are in.
"We have played five games in 15 days, which is a lot and after the Milan game we have to play pretty much the same number of games in a similar amount of time, so we have to make the right decisions and we will."
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