EPL TALK: Salah would be mad to leave this madness

THIS is why we watch. This is why Mo Salah cannot leave Liverpool. This is madness. But not just any run-of-the-mill madness, but madness of the English Premier League kind; the human error, red card, surreal save, late winner, head-scratching, chest-pumping, no-one-can-believe-what-just-happened kind of madness that we tend to take for granted.

And we really shouldn’t. And nor should Salah. Because it’s the good kind of madness, the one that occasionally cancels out, or at least distracts from, the worst kind of madness that involves reports of Salah’s agent talking transfers worth €100 million with Al-Ittihad.

Salah’s reported move to Saudi Arabia represents an existential dilemma that the EPL may need a moment to reconcile with. A little over the top? If anything, that’s underselling what’s really at stake here. Salah’s decision in the coming days is not just about him anymore. It’s about the wrong kind of football insanity confirming its omnipotence. If the hypnotic pull of that EPL spectacle at St James' Park cannot keep Salah where he needs to be, then no one is safe from the Saudi poaching exercise.

Newcastle United and Liverpool conspired to put on their own gladiatorial exhibition of sorts, effectively glaring at the global crowd and demanding an answer from all of us, including Salah. Were you not entertained? Seriously? It’s both a rhetorical and provocative question, daring Salah to suggest otherwise, to pretend that he needs to satiate a sporting soul elsewhere.

The two teams, the officials, the ringmaster antics of Jurgen Klopp and that extraordinary, volatile atmosphere put on by the Magpies, who circle their St James’ Park prey like The Birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, all stirred parts that other leagues cannot reach. It was good to be reminded that there are still things that a million quid a week can’t buy.

We all needed this, a daft football script that AI could never write. Newcastle lost a game they should’ve won. Liverpool lost a man, but arguably the wrong one. Alisson Becker lost himself in some sort of goalkeeping matrix, bending his body to pull off the save of the season (give him the trophy now) and Klopp was a chest thump away from losing the plot.

Meanwhile, Trent Alexander-Arnold gave away Liverpool’s first goal, deserved a second yellow card and continued to treat the act of defending the way the Kardashians treat housework. He could do it if he had to, but there are others paid to do it for him. His real job is to step forward and look fabulous, which he so often does.

On the touchline, a baton was supposed to be passed, from Klopp to Eddie Howe, from American conglomerate to Saudi autocracy, from old to new, but the wily German schooled the Englishman with a series of second-half substitutions that allowed the Reds to find spaces through Newcastle’s back four, despite being a man down. It was a surprise that Obi-Wan Klopp didn’t ruffle Eddie Skywalker's blond hair and remind him to trust his instincts more.

Beautiful bedlam can't be replicated elsewhere

And what about Darwin Nunez? He’s the big, beaming, goofy boy from next door, the one you’d happily take home to mother, but maybe not to a penalty box. He’s still an £85-million question mark with speed, power and an erratic targeting computer.

But not this morning. Nunez quelled dissenting voices by looking and finishing like a striker. His second goal came from Salah. Flicked with the outside of the Egyptian’s boot, a curved pass for a curved run, the moving parts were perfect. Madness ensued. The good kind.

And Salah surely had to ponder the moment. He had to take in the beautiful bedlam that engulfed his team-mates and perhaps even the EPL itself. The frenetic encounter was a timely emollient for a competition feeling a little raw and vulnerable. The Saudi cash is still willing, so the flesh is weak.

But the madness brought a certain serenity. We know this stuff. We rather like this stuff. We’d like more of it, please.

Salah is no different. Like all elite athletes, he must manage his inevitable decline and he’s blessed to be playing at a time when a superstar can semi-retire on the most lucrative terms, a pathway that was often denied his predecessors.

In a less affluent era, Bobby Moore opened a (failed) restaurant. Bobby Charlton ran soccer schools for kids. Ferenc Puskás ended up coaching a semi-professional side in Melbourne. Collectively, three of the finest legends to ever grace a pitch didn’t earn the kind of money that ageing greats can pick up today for a happy snap outside a designated Saudi tourist attraction. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. It’s hardly Salah’s fault that a few Instagram posts could benefit his family and his charity organisations for generations.

But he can still do all of that, next season, or the season after, preferably.

What Salah can’t do in the Saudi Pro League is look up in stoppage time and see Nunez finally making the right run, the run of a confident striker. He can’t slice open a defence and silence a crowd with a pass in a contest that actually matters. He can’t bring the anarchy in an EPL that thrives when it’s at its most rebellious, when it’s on the brink of spiralling out of control.

Why would Salah want to walk away from the outstanding madness that we’ve all just witnessed at St James’ Park? Whatever the size of the Saudi carrot, he’d be mad to leave Liverpool.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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