Van Dijk hopes 'very important' Salah remains at Liverpool

Virgil van Dijk hopes Mohamed Salah will remain at Liverpool next season after he played a starring role in their 3-0 win over Brighton in the FA Cup fourth round.

Salah scored from the penalty spot and assisted Dominik Szoboszlai's thumping finish at Anfield on Saturday, with Curtis Jones also on target for Arne Slot's side.

The Brighto win marked just the third time in his Liverpool career (428 games) that Salah has scored a goal, provided an assist and won a penalty in a single match.

The 33-year-old has also both scored and assisted in 15 different games for Liverpool across all competitions since the start of last season, nine more times than any other Premier League player during this period (Bukayo Saka and Erling Haaland six times each).

However, Salah's future on Merseyside was thrown into doubt after he suggested that he had been "thrown under the bus" by the club during a difficult run of form towards the back end of 2025.

Salah's current contract runs until the end of the 2026-27 season, and while it remains to be seen whether he will end his stellar nine-year stint at Liverpool, Van Dijk is hoping to line up alongside him next year. 

"[Mo is] the same as me – he's got one more year [left on his contract] so we will see," Van Dijk said.

"I always want Mo to stay because I'm a good friend of his, and we've been through the highs and not-so-highs – I don't want to call them lows – together for so many years.

"Mo is a very important Liverpool player who has set the bar extremely high. I can only say for us, nothing has changed.

"There are so many things people don't see that are important to try to become a successful team. Let's see for the rest of the season how important he still is and can be."

Following Salah's remarkable outburst in December after a 3-3 draw against Leeds United, a game in which he was an unused substitute, he has become a more prominent figure for Slot.

Salah has started the last six games for Liverpool in all competitions, recording six goal contributions (two goals, four assists), with only Cole Palmer (seven) managing more among Premier League players in that time.

He was back to his best against Brighton, producing team-leading totals for shots (five), chances created (four), touches in the opposition box (11), passes in the final third (18) and successful dribbles (three). 

"Mo is still a leader and important for me, as a captain, to have him around and to have him on the pitch, and his presence benefits the team," Van Dijk added.

"He always gives the team more than goals. There's obviously a lot of focus on his goals at the moment because he puts the standards so extremely high, so when he doesn't score as much, he gets criticised."