And so, the long goodbye begins for the Egyptian King, Mohamed Salah, undoubtedly, one of the greatest footballers the Premier League has ever seen.
Salah has worn the Liverpool shirt 435 times across all competitions. At most, he will get the opportunity up to 15 more times between now and the end of the season.
Yet, regardless of whether Liverpool win silverware this season, with Arne Slot’s side still in with a chance of the Champions League and FA Cup, the 33-year-old will leave having won six major trophies with Liverpool since joining from AS Roma in 2017.
The individual accolades are worth noting too, from a record four Premier League Golden Boots to winning the PFA Players’ Player of the Year on three occasions.
Since he signed for Liverpool, no one has more Premier League goals (189) or assists (92).
When his Liverpool team-mate Milos Kerkez recently posted a picture of Salah’s trophy cabinet on Instagram, the running joke on social media was that Salah collects player of the match awards like you would get them out of a vending machine.
The sight of Salah scoring, then kneeling and bowing his head to the floor in an act of prostration that Muslims call Sujood, will never be forgotten.
For Liverpool alone, he has scored 255 times, with only Ian Rush and Roger Hunt scoring more times for the club in its illustrious history.
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But it wasn’t meant to end like this, with Salah essentially agreeing to cut short his contract and Liverpool letting him leave on a free this summer.
Less than a year ago, Salah was sitting on a throne inside Anfield after renewing his contract and signing a deal until the summer of 2027.
His previous deal was set to expire in 2025, but given his numbers last season, where he topped the goalscoring and assist charts in the Premier League, the Liverpool hierarchy had no choice but to offer him a new deal.
Yet by December, Salah was benched, then left out of the squad entirely, after his explosive mixed zone interview at Leeds, where he claimed that his relationship with Slot had broken down and that someone at the club wanted him out.
Those close to Salah say he was always going to speak at Elland Road, regardless of the result, and that his initial discontent had started when he was benched for a Champions League game away at Eintracht Frankfurt in October, a match Liverpool won 5-1.
Slot admitted it was a difficult decision, but it didn’t sit right with Salah, who believed he should be starting every Premier League and Champions League game, given what he had done for the club.
Put simply, that was the first seed that Salah would no longer be a guaranteed starter and, given Liverpool’s summer outlay of £450 million, including Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, the direction of their attacking strategy was clear.
Salah knew he would no longer be the main man.
In the weeks leading up to that explosive interview, he was left upset after meetings with the Liverpool hierarchy, including sporting director Richard Hughes, where it was outlined that he could be benched.
His punishment for the interview was being left behind for the trip to Inter Milan.
But, three days later, Salah came off the bench against Brighton and got an assist, with Slot saying post-match there was “no issue to resolve.”
From there, the Egyptian travelled to the Africa Cup of Nations while the club held talks with his agent Ramy Abbas and, when Salah returned to England in January, those close to the situation felt a verbal agreement was in place for both player and club to part ways this summer.
