There are few things in football I fall to understand quite like supporters defending a club when it puts prices up. Last week, Liverpool announced plans to increase ticket prices in line with inflation. Just a couple of months earlier, it was confirmed that the Reds had become the top-earning Premier League club, with media revenue increasing by £60 million, commercial revenue by £15 million and match-day revenue by £14 million. With that in mind, it is absolutely bonkers to me that the club would risk pissing off loyal supporters for £1.2 million extra per match day. When Mo Salah leaves the club in the summer, that will see the Reds save more than that amount on a weekly basis. Yes, the club is right when it says that costs have gone up, but that is as true for supporters as it is for the behemoth that is LFC, with the difference being that we can’t simply spend an extra hour or so in negotiations over player wages in order to find the extra money. Fans who defend the club are seemingly happy to shoot themselves in the foot for no material benefit.
Ticket prices for England’s top four divisions back in 1981
When football was actually affordable so eg the £1.50 at my club Liverpool in 1980/81 is equal to £8.06 today, so if tickets went up with inflation £8.06 is what you would pay to get into the Kop today instead of the £45 you actually pay
— David Hughes (@filmcritic.bsky.social) 9 December 2024 at 21:08
The argument that it would allow the club to buy more players is just ridiculous. If we say that the club is making £1.2 million per match day, that equates to around £22.8 million over the course of a season in terms of Premier League matches. The last time we signed players for even close to that sort of fee, it was Wataru Endō and Federico Chiesa. In other words, the sort of money that is being foisted onto supporters who can barely afford it as it is will make next to no difference to the club when it comes to the kinds of players that they’ll suddenly be able to sign. John Henry, meanwhile, was worth $1.6 billion at around the time that Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool, whilst nowadays his personal net worth sits at around $6 billion. It is obviously ridiculously offensive that someone can be worth that much money, but it is frankly ludicrous that the club can suggest that supporters should pay more when the owner probably makes £1.2 million interest whilst he’s asleep. It will forever bemuse me that supporters, many of whom don’t actually go to the game, can defend that.
One of the Best Ever
Last week also saw the announcement from Mohamed Salah that he will be leaving Liverpool at the end of the season. There is no question that it is incredibly sad to think that the Egyptian King will not be lining up in Red for the next campaign, to say nothing of the fact that this one has been such a damp squib. Still, now is the time to celebrate what Salah gave us, rather than be sad about what we’re losing. Liverpool Football Club are the most successful English team in the history of the game, with countless names on the list of legends who have played for us. Yet Mo Salah absolutely deserves to be part of any conversation that takes place around the best ever players to line up for the club, such is the impact that he’s had on the club since his arrival from Roma. That is even more remarkable when you consider the fact that Jürgen Klopp reportedly had to be persuaded to sign him in the first place. Of all of the various things that tell a story about the club’s transfer strategy under Fenway Sports Group, Salah is the unarguable runaway success.
Prime Mo Salah was Usain Bolt quick, the tunnel view makes this goal iconic! #LFC #Liverpool #Redsky
— Michael Emonds (@michaelje67.bsky.social) 27 March 2026 at 14:10
He has given us all so many moments of joy. After all, what is football if not about the moments? Lest we forget, Everton haven’t won a trophy since 1995; if football was only about silverware, there would have been no point in the Blues building the Hill Dickinson Stadium as no one would support them. Mo Salah has given us all plenty of reasons to keep turning up at Anfield, with the added bonus being that he’s also helped us win everything we’ve ever wanted. His performances during the 2024-2025 title-winning campaign were outrageous for a player who was supposed to be winding down, making the idea that he was a ‘one-season wonder’ absolutely laughable. Instead, Salah has proven himself to be worthy of sitting alongside names like Steven Gerrard, Ian Rush and Sir Kenny Dalglish in terms of the all-time greats to have played for Liverpool. We will all have our own moments of Salah’s career that stand out to us, from the ‘Never Give Up’ shirt that he revealed prior to the Barcelona game or him dancing through the Man City defence. A genuine legend.
What’s Next?
Whilst we now know that Mo Salah will not be playing for Liverpool next season, what we don’t know is where it is that he will end up. The obvious rumours see him heading to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but I’m not entirely sure that isn’t people adding two and two together and getting ‘Muslim’. Salah’s daughters have been brought up in England, living a Western life, so I’m not entirely sure that he would be happy to put them into an oppressive regime where women are treated as second-class citizens. Major League Soccer might be an alternative, accepting the fact that the United States of America isn’t exactly the land of the free under Donald Trump, especially if you don’t have white skin. There is also an extent to which I think that Salah himself might not quite be ready for the semi-retirement that either Saudi Arabia or the US would represent, instead believing that he still has something competitive in him. As a result, it might well be that he instead feels that a move to somewhere like Italy, for example, where the pace of play is slower, will better suit him.
Liverpool could sign two wingers this summer.
On the right, they’d find a replacement for Mo Salah. On the left, they’d find a replacement for Luis Diaz.
A more central creative attacker could also be considered, especially if capable of operating in wide areas as well.
— @JacobsBen
— stevemcveigh.bsky.social (@stevemcveigh.bsky.social) 26 March 2026 at 19:18
In terms of the club itself, the question that needs to be answered is around how we replace someone as irreplaceable as Mohamed Salah. In the old Moneyball style that we know the owners love, you have to replace him in the aggregate. In other words, you can’t get one man in to do what Salah does, so you look to get a few different players to pick up the slack. You could argue that we’ve already looked to do that with Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike, but the injury to Isak, combined with him not being fit at the start of the season, means we haven’t got to see it in practice. We know that Arne Slot likes to play with wingers, yet even if the Dutchman isn’t in charge of the Reds next season, we’ll still need someone to play on the left. The good news is that now the argument of ‘Mo Salah plays there’ can’t be used by potential incoming players. Instead, it is clear there is a vacancy, so names such as Yan Diomande, Michael Olise and Franco Mastantuono will bubble to the surface as Liverpool look to work out who to sign in Salah’s place.
