Roma Chief Plays Down Salah Talks, Reds Reportedly Up Their Bid to £35mil

The press may be telling us that Liverpool’s move for AS Roma winger Mohamed Salah is already a done deal, but when you ask the Italian side what the deal is they have a vastly different answer.

“With these questions [on Salah] you seem like the Roman reporters!,” said Roma president Jim Pallotta, speaking to Sirius XM radio. “In any case, there’s nothing in it at the moment,” continued the American, taking the steam out of it all. “We continue to receive offers for many of our players and if we were to listen to all of them, we’d lose three quarters of the squad. Now we’ll see what to do,” added Pallotta, going on to remind everyone that the Reds aren’t the only team looking to strengthen their squad. “In order to improve, we need four or five quality reinforcements, because we’ll be taking part in the Champions League too next year.”

Back at the bargaining table after seeing an initial offer of £28mil rejected for the Egyptian international, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp seems to be intent on sealing the deal sooner rather than later and is prepared to make him the joint most expensive signing in the club’s history with a renewed offer of £35mil matching what the Anfield outfit spent to bring Andy Carroll to Merseyside six years ago.

Salah, for his part, seems keen on the switch with personal terms apparently already agreed between the two sides. Set to earn somewhere in the region of £90,000k per week, the bump in pay will certainly be an added bonus for the 24-year old, but with Champions League football on offer and a chance to set his unproductive time at Chelsea right, taking another crack at the Premier League seems to be the biggest motivator behind his desire to move back to England. If he can reproduce anywhere near the kind of performances he churned out last season — scoring 15-goals and assisting on 13 others — he’ll do just that and then some.

More on this as it develops…