Liverpool 'can afford' to let trio leave says expert despite £129m valuation amid transfer links

Liverpool can reportedly allow the trio of Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold to leave without it hurting their finances, says one expert.

The three stars are all key players for the club and have been for over six years. Fundamental to the success of Jurgen Klopp’s era, they now face a career-crossroads as all three of their contracts are set to expire next summer. With a combined value of £129m, the club will want a resolution sooner rather than later, as they will be able to sign pre-contracts with other clubs in January.

Measuring their importance to the club is almost impossible but given that out of the 154 players with 150+ appearances for Liverpool in the club's history, the top two for win rate are Virgil van Dijk (68.5%) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (66.1%), while Mo Salah has the best mins/goal rate (133) showcases how they are their most important players. In terms of the club’s finances, they signed two players in the summer that included the low-cost deal to bring Federico Chiesa to the club for an initial £10m, while Giorgi Mamardashvili also agreed a £25m move before being loaned back to Valencia.

Those costs were offset by the deals done to sell Fabio Carvalho and Sepp van den Berg to Brentford for a combined £47.5m. Bobby Clark left for RB Salzburg for £10m and they also received around £7.5m from a sell-on-clause based in Dominic Solanke’s contract - and the club have shown a prudent nature in the market and with their finances over the years that have allowed them to build strongly.

As a result, football finance expert Dr Dan Plumley has claimed that the club are in a healthy financial situation and would be okay even if their key trio leave for nothing at the end of the season. “There’s obviously the risk that Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold will leave the club for nothing next summer instead of a big fee – but those big transfer fees are not critical to Liverpool’s business model,” he told Instant Casino. “I think we’ll see some movement on it soon in one way or another, but there won’t be panic in the hierarchy from a financial standpoint about losing them for no fee.

 “There doesn’t appear to be a financial issue at Liverpool, they look to have a healthy set of finances, so it won't be that stopping them from renewing their contracts. Instead, I think it comes down to the playing side of things and the shift we will see under the lead of Arne Slot, so we have to treat the negotiations for Salah, Van Dijk and Trent as isolated situations.

“Whilst they obviously all retain market value, Salah and Van Dijk are aging talents, so the managerial structure may be looking to move forwards alongside the next phase of Slot’s development for the team.”