Latest Salah deal update & team news ahead of Benfica – Liverpool FC Roundup

April 4, 2022
This Is Anfield

Liverpool are straight back into action as we go full-pelt into the final stretch – it’s Benfica away on Tuesday so fitness news and other first-team updates are in today’s news.

Mo talks ongoing but no new breakthrough yet

Reports on Sunday had Liverpool fans hopeful that Mohamed Salah would be putting pen to paper quickly and extending his Anfield stay.

Put bluntly, that’s premature.

Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that the “decisive parties” are still in talks, which is certainly a positive, but added that there was “nothing new” regarding when an agreement might be announced.

Mo has had a few too many negatives of late, between his AFCON final defeat and the World Cup play-off exit, so it is to be hoped that this off-field matter isn’t a further distraction. Klopp has backed him to resume scoring and is far more bothered about performances than the scoresheet, anyway.

Before Benfica

Trent Alexander-Arnold is ready for action, says the boss ahead of Benfica – and in fact the Reds have a fully fit squad to choose from with every player in training on Monday

Benfica themselves have a hefty seven players running the risk of being suspended for the second leg at Anfield – the Reds have two treading the same tightrope

Jurgen Klopp had plenty to say in his pre-game presser including how tough Benfica will be – and also had words of congratulations for LFC Women after their promotion

Latest Liverpool FC news

Dirk Kuyt has warned the Reds about Benfica’s likely approach of playing games and causing frustration with a “typical” approach in the Champions League

Virgil van Dijk says he felt he was “taken for granted” after his return from injury, with an expectation he’d hit top heights in form and fitness straight away

And the much-criticised NFT launch from the club has seemed to be a pretty big failure, with just 5% of images sold in a week

Latest Premier League chat

Ralf Rangnick claims Man United need two or three transfer windows to catch up with the Reds, which isn’t bad considering they’ve wasted about the last dozen of them with wild wastage and being turned down

Kalvin Phillips is a £60m target for Steven Gerrard and Aston Villa this summer – presumably Leeds give their defensive players a pricetag equal to £1m per goal conceded when they’re not playing

Lautaro Martinez wants a Premier League move but he’ll only go if Arsenal or Spurs lash out €80m on him, which doesn’t really seem like a Spurs move to be honest – they prefer double that amount spread over about four different strikers over a three year period