Salah And Van Dijk New Contracts Ease Liverpool’s Rebuild Requirements

In the space of one week Liverpool FC has secured new contracts for two of the best players at the club.

On Thursday, Liverpool announced a new contract for central defender and captain Virgil van Dijk worth around $53 million over two years, having secured the same length of deal for top goalscorer Mohamed Salah, worth around $640,000 per week, last Friday.

The confirmation that these two players will be staying on at the club gives Liverpool more breathing space when it comes to rebuilding its team for a new era under Arne Slot, who replaced iconic manager Jürgen Klopp last summer.

It is still vital, though, that the club begins to make moves to prepare for a future without the stars of the Klopp era.

The much-lauded Liverpool recruitment team will execute some of its plans in the 2025 summer transfer window as it aims to give Slot the players he needs to maintain the challenge for trophies.

Van Dijk turns 34 this summer, while Salah will turn 33 around the same time. The club has bought itself some time as it looks to remain strong in the present while also looking towards a future without these two players who will go down as club legends.

New contracts for the pair are especially important as it looks like another of their world-class players, Trent Alexander-Arnold, will be leaving the club when his own contract expires at the end of the season.

Even without considering expiring contracts and players who might be sold, Liverpool already needed new players, so keeping some of the current group on board was vital to avoid a squad-strengthening exercise becoming a potentially disruptive overhaul of the starting XI.

Liverpool has been top of the 2024/25 Premier League since the beginning of November. It might seem picky to say that a team that has sat so convincingly at the top of the table for so long has some obvious areas for improvement, as if striving for a perfect roster of players that doesn’t exist, but Liverpool does have clear areas to address within its squad.

The team can strengthen several positions depth-wise, but looks like it needs new first-choice level or potential first-choice level full-backs on both sides, a defensive midfielder who is trusted to play more minutes than Wataru Endo has, a young center-back who could become a starter, and a striker.

There is a certain flexibility for ins and outs among the forwards given that no players, bar Salah, come across as indispensable, despite the qualities and useful attributes they have shown at various points this season. Half of the forward line could be replaced without upsetting things too much.

Rebuild Required?

Does this mean a rebuild is still required at Liverpool? Yes and no. It also depends on the definition of a rebuild in relation to a soccer team. The best teams are constantly rebuilding, sometimes gradually in the background or sometimes more visibly in the form of first-team transfer deals.

Too many new additions in a short space of time, no matter how good they all are, can upset a team’s rhythm, togetherness, and identity. A gradual replacing and upgrading of parts is usually more effective.

Since Klopp’s appointment in 2015, Liverpool has generally been good at squad evolution. There were a few moments where it might have acted with more urgency, but the delays usually led to the acquisition of a quality player further down the line who might not have been available in the original moment. It’s an element of long-term planning that leads to more gradual and more effective squad building.

Slot is now approaching his first noticeable series of upgrades and transfer dealings at the club as he is on his way to winning the league in 2025 with the players he inherited. The only new first-team signing made under Slot was Federico Chiesa, who has barely featured.

If it is still considered a rebuild, what the new contracts signed by Salah and Van Dijk mean is that this is now less of a rebuild than it was before.

It at least prevents an overhaul, because if all three of Salah, Van Dijk, and Alexander-Arnold had failed to sign new contracts, then Liverpool would have been looking at having to sign more than half a team’s worth of new players for the starting XI alone.

New Signings Still Needed

The two-year deals for Salah and Van Dijk give Liverpool the same amount of time to plan for their eventual departure. It gives the club a chance to bide its time for a transfer window or two and await the opportunity to sign quality, rather than having to sign all of the new players required in one summer.

The replacements can also come throughout the team rather than being viewed as like-for-like or as the new Salah and the new Van Dijk, which would bring with it unnecessary accompanying pressure.

The club will still need immediate reinforcements, though, in those obvious areas for improvement mentioned earlier, and a replacement for Alexander-Arnold should he leave as expected.

Again, the replacement for Alexander-Arnold will likely need to come in a couple of areas rather than one, while the progress of Conor Bradley from the academy in Alexander-Arnold’s position, if not his role, is a bonus and has shown another side of player acquisition and development working well.

Endo will be worth keeping for his ability to deputise at center-back as well as midfield if he is happy with such a backup role. There is also an argument that he should have been used more this season (especially as the form of Ryan Gravenberch dipped due to fatigue) and that he should be used more next season. But a new signing in this deep midfield area could end up strengthening what’s already there while also going some way to replacing what Alexander-Arnold brought.

This summer should be the kind that those in charge of recruitment enjoy, and will be a test for the club’s latest sporting director Richard Hughes. It’s a chance to put research and scouting into action, and a chance to acquire the transfer targets they have been working on in the background.

A club’s success in the transfer market can sometimes be judged by the players it turns down, but this summer for Liverpool it will be about the players it signs. Two important signings—Van Dijk and Salah—have already been made.