Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk decisions questioned as Liverpool sent clear transfer message

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Former manager Gordon Strachan has questioned whether Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk have overstayed their welcome at Liverpool after being given new contracts in the summer. The Reds are enduring a disappointing start to the season with defeat to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League last weekend the latest blow.

The setback marked their sixth defeat in seven top-flight matches this campaign. Such poor results have seen Liverpool slump to 12th in the table, trailing both Everton and Manchester United , and sitting 11 points adrift of league leaders Arsenal . Much of last season's transfer talk around Liverpool centred on potential new deals for three key players.

Van Dijk and Salah both committed their futures to the club, while Trent Alexander-Arnold departed for Real Madrid .

The Reds also invested heavily in the transfer window, bringing in Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Giovanni Leoni, Freddie Woodman and Armin Pecsi. Two of those acquisitions saw the club splash out over £100million apiece.

Strachan has raised concerns about Liverpool's transfer strategy in extending Van Dijk and Salah's contracts, whilst also sharing his views on several of the club's summer recruits.

"There's a sense of: ‘What's happened here?’ It could be a lot of things," Strachan said in an interview with BOYLE Sports.

"Have Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah overstayed their welcome? Everyone wanted them to stay, and it looked good, but I had reservations.

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“I definitely had reservations, just at the time it took to sign their contracts and at the last minute. You've also got to consider that the guys like playing at Liverpool, they love playing at Liverpool. But particularly with Salah. I couldn't see how he was going to do any better.

“So, anything below the magnificent level that he's been producing over the last five or six years, there's got to be negativity about it.

"I don't think anybody in football could have thought he's going to get better in the next couple of years. So there's always got to be a negativity about any performance under that magnificent level he's been at.

“Sometimes you've got to be brutally honest, like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, who knew when it was time for people to go.

“So I think that might be a little problem at Liverpool at the moment. That might be one of the problems because they haven't got a lot of good players. You've got to say that, don't you? You look at the players they've brought in, have they come up to scratch at the moment? Maybe not.

“So there's a lot going on at that club. With all the signings we all thought it could only get better, but it hasn’t been the case.

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