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The Reds are on the verge of signing the Ballon d’Or runner up to a monster extension to fend of PSG
Financial prudence sounds all well and good until you’re at home on a Friday night eating ramen noodles while your oil-rich friends are blowing it all on bottle service. Even so, disappointment on the transfer market shouldn’t override the excellent job Liverpool owners, FSG have done spending wisely to tie down the best squad in the world to long-term contracts.
The latest is said to be the world’s best defender, Virgil Van Dijk, who the Daily Mail is reporting is set to become Anfield’s highest-earner with a bumper new 5-year, £220k-per-week deal.
The cornerstone of the team and a generational talent, there has never been any danger the club would allow the 28-year-old to run down his contract that, until now, had only secured his services until the end of the 2022-23 season. Instead, manager, Jürgen Klopp, who signed his own extension with the Reds a few months back, will retain Van Dijk as the anchor of his defense until he is at least 33 years old.
Even at that age, the Ballon d’Or runner up’s superior physical gifts combined with his world class positioning and reading of the game should still see him performing at the highest levels.
The rumored wages in the new deal place the Dutch international in first place in the squad ahead of league record scorer Mohamed Salah (£200,000-per-week) and talisman Roberto Firmino (£180,000-per-week). Though a splash for the well-run, ramen-loving FSG, the pay rise is still less the less than the £280,000-per-week that Qatar-backed Paris Saint-Germain were said to have offered to tempt Liverpool’s prized asset to the French capital.
The report went on to mention that Sadio Mané, with three years left on his own deal, has become the next priority for extension, with an offer doubling of the Senegal international’s £100,000-per-week deal said to currently be on the table.
