Mohamed Salah doesn't speak often. And while much was made of his admission in the post-match mixed zone at the London Stadium this weekend, that doesn't tell the full story.

"There’s gonna be a fire today if I speak," he said as he walked through. But those few words made more of an impact than whatever he could have said to the assembled journalists. By choosing to make those remarks, Salah ironically only added fuel to the story.

About an hour or so earlier, Salah had been seen arguing with his manager, Jürgen Klopp, on the touchline. The Egyptian has been out of form since returning from injury, but this was the strangest sight yet.

While the fallout from the rather public spat is set to continue, the talk about a potentially big decision needing to be made this summer with Salah has already begun. It is only going to ramp up further.

He, like Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk, is set to be out of contract at the end of next season as things stand. And when a player's deal gets near to the final 12 months, that usually means one thing: they sign an extension, or they leave.

"I think it might be one of these situations where it suits both parties," TNT Sports pundit Ally McCoist said post-West Ham. "It might suit Mo Salah to move on and it might suit Liverpool to go on and reinvest in the money they get for him."

It is a line of thinking that has been echoed elsewhere too. But this is a player that has done everything for Liverpool. It is one thing to say that he might go and quite another to have to come up with a replacement — especially in the same summer as losing Klopp.

The transition from Klopp to Arne Slot will be hard enough to get right without losing the Reds talisman at the same time. And while any new contract must be focused on what he could offer in the future rather than what he has done in the past, the reality of how big a player Salah remains for Liverpool is clear in the most basic of numbers.

This season, Salah has 36 goal contributions in all competitions — five more than second-best Darwin Núñez in 10 fewer appearances. The Egyptian is comfortably Liverpool's best scorer and creator in the final third.

For Liverpool to think about moving beyond Salah, it would need to be sure that his contributions could be replaced. Bukayo Saka has hit 15 this season for the first time, for comparison — a number Salah has exceeded in each of his seven seasons at Anfield including this one. And while Salah has been off form since the turn of the year, he still has a goal every other game in the Premier League in that time.

To lose that kind of goalscoring threat based on a few months of him being off form would make little sense at any time, let alone when Liverpool is adjusting to a new head coach. Salah's numbers, even in a relatively off-year, mean there is no way he can be sacrificed. The nonsense on the touchline against West Ham hasn't changed that.