Press conference'Very happy' - Arne Slot reacts after Mohamed Salah signs new Liverpool contract

It was announced on Friday morning that Salah’s stellar Anfield career will extend beyond the end of this season and, shortly after, Slot held his pre-match press conference ahead of the Reds’ meeting with West Ham United.

Inevitably, a major talking point was the No.11’s decision to remain at a club where he has already achieved legendary status due to his catalogue of astonishing achievements since arriving in 2017.

See a summary of the head coach’s response to questions on Salah below.

On his immediate reaction…

Happy, of course. He’s shown at this club for so many years in a row now how much value he has for the team [and] for the club. So, as like I assume all our fans and his teammates, we are very happy that he extended for two more years and hopefully he can show on Sunday again how important he has been for the whole season to us.

On whether the news has come as ‘a relief’ to him…

I think for the fans it is [a relief]. I don’t think it is a surprise to you that I knew a bit better how his contract situation went over the course of the whole season. So, maybe for the fans it was a pleasant surprise, I knew it a bit longer, of course, that things were heading in the right direction and I think it’s also a big compliment for Richard [Hughes] that he achieved to extend Mo Salah, who is such a great player and as a free agent can go probably to every club in the world wherever he wants to. But he stayed at our club and that’s also a compliment for Richard, I think.

On what makes Salah a special player…

First of all, he is always judged just as a player – which is, of course, what you guys should do. But I also see him as a human being and he is a humble person [who] always wants to work hard, always puts a lot, a lot of effort in to become the player he has become and he wants to stay at that level so he just keeps bringing that effort every single day. And what makes him special on the pitch is, in my opinion, that he can score goals.

Now, there are more players who can score goals but Mo can also score a goal if he is not in the best half-hour or the best 15 minutes and that’s why he is mentally so strong as well – and you need to be that if you want to be seven or eight years at the highest level every three or four days. Apart from quality [and] apart from physique you need to be mentally really strong as well and I think that, apart from all the other things, how mentally strong he is is probably what stands out for me.

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On what more Salah can bring to Liverpool…

We’re always trying to achieve a bit more as a team and as individuals but if you are playing at Liverpool you’re probably also close to coming to the maximum of your ability, so there’s not a lot of room for improvement for Mo or for all the other players anymore. They are just trying to reach perfection and I saw [Bryson] DeChambeau say this phrase and it was from [Vince] Lombardi I think, who said, ‘We are trying to reach perfection, which we will never reach, but we reach excellence on the way,’ and I think that is what we are trying here as well.

So, we are trying to bring the best and the maximum out of the players, to bring this one or two per cent extra, but it’s clear that Mo is coming close to the end, not the end of his career but to the end of his ability. I think we’ve brought almost the maximum out of his qualities this season and then it’s about consistency, which is one of the most difficult things in football and that is why he has been seen as such a star player because to play once or twice the way Mo does, I’m not saying every player can but most players can, but to do this on such a consistency level, that’s what makes it so hard. And then I come back to the mentality part again.

• Mohamed Salah interview: I'm very, very happy to be at LFC

On the message Salah signing the contract sends...

I think it’s important because I’m 100 per cent sure that our fans love to see him extending. So, it gives a positive vibe towards the club – maybe a positive vibe we might not even need, but it’s always good to have positive vibes instead of negative vibes. On the other hand, Mo performed so well, the club performed so well, with you guys only talking about their contracts.

But I think it’s only positive because if you want to sign new players or players that want to extend here, yes or no, it’s always positive to see that one of our star players over the last seven or eight years has made the choice to extend his contract. It also shows maybe how ambitious this club is, so not only Mo but also the owners and the ones that came in last season, that we are really ambitious to keep performing the way this club has performed for so many years.

On whether he sees Salah’s role changing in the future...

That I don’t know. I don’t know six, seven, eight years ago or maybe three or four years ago if he was every second of the game involved – I would be surprised. If I look at all the wingers all around the world, they are not 90 minutes outplaying their opponent every single time. I think if you are a winger, you have to be creative – and that’s the most difficult part in football, especially against these low blocks many good wingers face. So, it’s then normal that once in a while you lose the ball or one of your actions fail.

But in general, Mo has a lot of impact on our game with assists and goals but not only that. I think he’s also a big threat – but he’s not the only one. If I look at the Champions League this week, I think wingers are getting more and more and more and more important in this modern game of football because teams are going to lower, lower, lower, lower blocks than ever before. If you look at Raphinha, Lamine Yamal, [Khvicha] Kvaratskhelia, Desire Doue, [Bukayo] Saka, [Gabriel] Martinelli, they were all able during the week to create chances – and that’s what Mo does for us and what Cody [Gakpo] and Lucho [Luis Diaz] are doing for us as well.

• In photos: Mohamed Salah celebrates new contract with Liverpool