Grim Souness, the former Liverpool player, fears that Egyptian star Mohamed Salah will join the duo Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after renewing his contract with the Red Club last July, noting that he noticed a difference in the scorer’s mentality after extending the contract.
Mohamed Salah won the Premier League top scorer last season with 23 goals, and then he was spending about the last year of his previous contract with Liverpool, but last July he signed a new contract to keep him in the northern city until the summer of 2025.
Salah failed to restore his previous level in the current season during the past 6 rounds of the competition, as he only scored twice, and Souness, the Liverpool player for 7 seasons, sees that he has noticed a difference in the Egyptian player’s mentality since the contract was signed, hoping that Mohamed will prove his mistake in the coming weeks.
Souness told the “White and Jordan” program on Monday evening: I criticized Salah last week and said that he is no longer the same after he extended his contract. I hope he gets angry with me and proves that I was wrong.
He continued: I said that because I remember Mesut Ozil and Aubameyang when they were at Arsenal, they signed the contract and their passion for playing faded, and this is something that worries me in the case of Salah, and I hope I am wrong.
Ozil and Aubameyang’s career witnessed a noticeable decline after the renewal of their contracts with Arsenal, as they left for free from the Emirates Stadium, and the first plays in Istanbul, Turkey’s Basaksehir, and the other returned to the English Premier League through the Chelsea gate.
And Souness continued: In the Manchester United match, Lisandro Martinez interfered with Salah at the beginning of the confrontation, and then Mohamed was afraid and did not want to be kicked again.
Salah hopes to score again when he travels to Napoli to meet the hosts in the first round of the Champions League group stage on Wednesday.