Liverpool must look at Red Sox and Betts amid contract dance with Salah | Mohamed Salah

Fenway Sports Group, the company run by John W Henry that owns a majority stake in Liverpool FC, does not need to look too far back in its own history to find a lesson that should signal a resolution to Mohamed Salah's contract situation.

In February 2020, Mookie Betts was one of the best baseball players on the planet. He had just over a year left to promote the Boston Red Sox – also owned by FSG – to a World Series win. He was 27 years old and at the peak of his powers. He was the American League MVP and four-time All-Star. He was also about to become a free agent.

Inspired by Billy Beane's Oakland Athletics, the famous Moneyball team, and fueled by young general manager Theo Epstein, the Red Sox had ended an 86-year World Series drought in 2004 thanks, in part, to , to his adoption of analytics.

Emboldened by what they saw in the game's underlying numbers, they traded hugely popular shortstop Nomar Garcíaparra midway through that season and made shrewd, franchise-changing additions starting with previously unknown players like Kevin Millar and David 'Big Papi' Ortiz.

The data helped them build three more title-winning teams, in 2007, 2013 and 2018. They also told them to trade Betts.

Feeling that the length of his next contract would last much longer than his best remaining years and valuing financial flexibility over securing the future of their franchise star, the Red Sox did not present Betts with an offer that they felt equaled his market value. Instead of letting him walk for free, Boston traded Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Red Sox received a comparatively meager package of Alex Verdugo, Connor Wong and Jeter Downs in return. Only Wong is still in the club. Betts received a 12-year, $365 million contract.

In the five years since he left Boston, Betts has won two World Series and finished in the top five in MVP voting three times. During the same period, the Red Sox have recorded only one winning season.

And now the FSG is facing a similar situation with its first division club. Salah is undoubtedly one of the best players in Liverpool's rich history. Signed from Roma for £36.5m in 2017, he has scored 223 goals in 368 appearances for the Anfield side. He was the star of their first top-flight title in almost three decades when the Reds won the Premier League in 2020, a year after he helped them to Champions League glory.

At the end of the current season, his contract – if not renewed – will expire. It's a more serious stay-or-go dilemma than even Betts' departure, as there will be no commercial return. And unlike standard practice in the NFL, free agent departures in football cannot result in compensatory picks for a draft that doesn't exist.

Liverpool's recent success has been as data-driven as the Red Sox's resurgence in the 21st century. It would be contrary to unwritten policy to offer a large, long contract to a player in his 30s, at which point analytical data predicts a rapid and severe decline in performance.

Salah is 32 years old. He is already Liverpool's highest-earning player and the eighth highest-paid player in the world, earning around £350,000 a week.

He also remains arguably the best player in the Premier League. Liverpool, in their first season under new manager Arne Slot, are top of the table after 12 games, eight points ahead of defending champions Manchester City. Their lofty position and considerable lead in the title race is largely down to Salah. With 10 goals and six assists, he has directly contributed to more goals than any other player.

There is also reason to believe that Salah will be able to avoid the kind of decline typically seen in players his age and extend his prime longer than most. This is because, compared to many of his fellow superstars, he was a relatively late bloomer. In his late teens, he did not (like, for example, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo or Neymar) play more than 50 elite-level games per season.

Salah first moved to Europe at the age of 20 when he signed for Swiss side FC Basel. Then he had a failed spell with Chelsea. It wasn't until he joined Roma in 2015, aged 23, that he first played more than 1,500 minutes in a single season in a major European league. Less burnout due to a lower workload early in your career should contribute to your longevity.

What's more, the cost of acquiring a truly qualitative replacement for Salah would almost certainly be much greater than the price of keeping him. Ask the Red Sox how their Betts succession plan has turned out.

Betts wanted to stay at Fenway Park. “I know people don't believe me, but I wanted to stay in Boston my whole career,” he told Foul Territory last year. “That was my life. I knew everyone there. It was a short flight to Nashville. “It was perfect.”

And Salah, speaking after Liverpool's 3-2 win over Southampton in the Premier League last weekend, expressed his desire to stay at Liverpool and expressed his disappointment at not yet receiving a contract offer from the club. .

“You know I've been at the club for many years,” he said. “There is no club like this. But in the end it's not in my hands. As I said before, it's December and I still haven't received anything about my future.

“I love the fans. The fans love me. In the end it is not in my hands or in those of the fans. Let's wait and see.”

Analytics evangelists will attest that to fully reap the benefits of a data-driven approach requires a stolid adherence to numbers at all times. But five years later, the Red Sox are still reeling from the loss of Betts. FSG must avoid the biggest mistake of its American gang when it comes to tying up Liverpool's star winger.