Neymar, Mbappe or Messi axed? How PSG would line up with Salah

Stuart Telford

• 25 Feb 2023 15:55 GMT
• 3 min read

Mo Salah has been linked with a move to PSG at a time when the futures of Neymar, Mbappe and Messi are all uncertain.

Salah was pictured having dinner with Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi in January, and at the time the suspicion was that he was being sounded out ahead of a potential Qatari takeover of Liverpool.

But John Henry has since said FSG are not making the Reds available for sale, increasingly speculation that a potential move to Paris was actually the primary topic of their conversation.

READ: Salah lined up as Messi replacement at PSG

It comes as a time when Lionel Messi's old friend and Argentina teammate Sergio Aguero has claimed that Messi is set to spurn PSG's offer of a new contract and return to Newell's Old Boys in his native Rosario at the end of the season.

How would PSG line up with Salah?

With Messi gone, Salah would be a natural fit on the right-hand side of PSG's attack. A left-footed right winger par excellence, he has plundered 19 goals and nine assists in what has been considered a poor season by his Liverpool standards.

PSG's MNM front three of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Messi has to be broken up at some point, but it appears Messi is now likeliest to make way soonest.

READ: Neymar makes Chelsea transfer decision

Mbappe continues to be linked with Real Madrid while Chelsea are reportedly interested in Neymar, but Real are unwilling to match the former's pay and he will still only be 26 when his current deal expires, and the latter is under contract until 2025 with the option of another year. His age also doesn't fit Todd Boehly's "Vision 2030" for the club.

Further back, Warren Zaire-Emery became PSG's youngest ever player in August just a few months past his 16th birthday, and his rise could relegated the likes of Fabian Ruiz and Renato Sanches to the bench by nest season.

Achraf Hakimi has been linked with a return to Real Madrid, meanwhile, but if Mbappe sticks around for now so might the Morocco right-back, who counts the France talisman as one of his best friends in football.

Sergio Ramos' name might be conspicuous by its absence here. The former Madrid captain has played well for PSG this season, but with his contract up in the summer and Presnel Kimpebe expected back from an Achilles tendon injury, expect a chance in personnel in central defence.