Mohamed Salah Has Left Liverpool. Where Does He Go Next?

Nine years. 256 goals. 120 assists. One of the most decorated careers any footballer has built at a single club.

Mohamed Salah played his final game for Liverpool on Sunday, May 25, against Brentford in the last Premier League fixture of the season. The sendoff was everything the occasion deserved. What comes next is the question the entire football world is now waiting to find out.

Salah himself has not made it easy to predict. “I am still assessing everything,” he said after his farewell. “In due course everything will become clear.” Egypt’s national team media coordinator went slightly further, saying an announcement on his next club would come within days.

That announcement has not yet arrived. But the options are becoming clearer.

How It Ended at Liverpool

The final season was complicated, and it is worth being honest about that.

Arne Slot left Salah out of the starting lineup in the early weeks of the campaign, which raised eyebrows. A public statement attributed to the player before the Africa Cup of Nations caused controversy inside the club. He suffered a muscle injury in April against Crystal Palace that threatened to end his Liverpool career without a proper goodbye, though he recovered in time for the final day.

His numbers this season, 12 goals and nine assists across all competitions, were below what Liverpool fans came to expect over the years. But context matters. He managed those numbers while playing through the uncertainty of knowing this was his last year, navigating a difficult relationship with the manager and dealing with injury in the closing weeks. Not his best season. Far from his worst.

The record he leaves behind is untouchable. He is Liverpool’s joint all-time record Premier League scorer, and his 256 goals across all competitions place him among the handful of players who ever defined a club for an entire era.

The Options on the Table

Saudi Pro League

This has been the loudest name in the conversation for two years. The Saudi Pro League CEO Omar Mugharbel told the BBC in December that Salah is welcome and that clubs are responsible for making their move. Al Ittihad are the club most consistently linked.

Salah rejected Saudi interest before. He signed a contract extension at Liverpool last summer specifically to stay in European football. Whether that thinking has changed now that his time at Anfield is genuinely over is the central unknown. Financially, the Saudi option would be the most significant contract of his career by a distance.

Serie A Return

This is the option that has gained real momentum in recent weeks. AC Milan and AS Roma are both reported to have held discussions, according to Football Insider and 365Scores. Salah played for Roma and Fiorentina earlier in his career and knows Italian football well.

Roma would carry obvious sentimental weight. It is where his European journey began before Liverpool transformed him into one of the game’s elite players. Milan would offer Champions League football and a genuine title challenge. Juventus were also briefly linked, but their sporting director Marco Ottolini was direct in dismissing those reports, saying there was absolutely nothing in the rumours.

MLS

The Athletic reported in March that MLS is considered unlikely at this stage. Both Chicago Fire and San Diego FC had been floated as possibilities, but those links have cooled significantly. MLS commissioner Don Garber extended a public invitation, but Salah’s preference appears to be remaining at a competitive level in a major league rather than winding down in North America.

Other European Options

Atletico Madrid, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray have all been mentioned by various sources. The Turkish clubs would offer European competition through the Europa League or Conference League. Atletico would offer Champions League football and the kind of intense, high-stakes environment Salah has always thrived in.

What Salah Actually Wants

Reading between the lines of everything he has said publicly, Salah wants to keep playing at the highest level available to him. He turns 34 this summer. His body is still in good enough shape to compete at the top. A move to a league where the standard is lower than the Premier League feels premature by his own standards.

The Saudi option represents the money. The European options represent the competition. Which one wins depends entirely on how Salah weighs those two things against each other at this point in his life.

His next move will be one of the most talked about transfers of the summer. Possibly the most talked about. When the announcement comes, it will land like a headline whether it is expected or not.

What Liverpool Do Now

Liverpool are already moving. Interest in RB Leipzig winger Yan Diomande and PSG’s Bradley Barcola has been confirmed by multiple sources. The club understands that replacing Salah is not a single signing but a rebuilding of an entire side of their attack.

Nine years of Mohamed Salah set a standard that no single player will walk in and immediately match. What Liverpool do next will define the next chapter of the club.

For Salah, the next chapter starts wherever he decides to write it.