Atlético Interested in £50m Salah Deal

Bigger, richer or more successful teams poaching your best players is an eternal truth of football, but one some fans accept more easily than others. For supporters of an historically significant — and still relatively successful — club such as Liverpool, it can be hard to reconcile oneself with the notion that players would prefer taking their talents elsewhere, particularly when they’ve already lived the Anfield experience for a portion of their career.

There are mitigating circumstances, of course, which is why when a certain caliber of clubs — Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the likes — comes calling, fans will generally, begrudgingly, accept a player’s desire to move.

Atlético Madrid are, despite their remarkably regular success in recent years, not on this list of acceptable destinations. Thus, when the Rojiblancos show interest in Liverpool top scorer and new-boy Mohamed Salah, most fans will treat the idea with disdain. Luckily, it seems the higher-ups at the club do as well.

According to reports out of Spain, the Anfield outfit has either rebuffed any of the £50m advances outright, or cheekily suggested the Madrid club offer their own superstar attacker in exchange, giving up Antoine Griezmann in the mythical straight swap deal for Salah. Griezmann may be struggling for a misfiring Atlético, and there may be rumours of animosity between the Frenchman and some of his team mates, but the two-time Champions League runners-up would be loathe to part ways with the 26-year old nonetheless.

At any rate, in this post-Neymar world, Salah — particularly on current form — isn’t going anywhere for less than triple digits, if at all. Atléti will have to look elsewhere for a solution to their goalscoring woes, and Reds fans who had begun fantasizing about Griezmann in Red can pour a cool bath and think about baseball or something.