Liverpool, in the Salah, Van Dijk and Alexander Arnold cases

The last dance, who hasn’t seen it? There is a team that defeats everyone with three phenomena, Jordan, Pippen and Rodman, a coach who keeps it together and a GM convinced that it is the right time to change everything. The cult documentary on the 1998 Chicago Bulls was born right there, from the title that coach Phil Jackson gives to the year that would arrive on the cover of the playbook: one last dance, have fun and goodbye. They’ll end up winning again, Jackson will take a sabbatical, Jordan will retire for the second time, Pippen will go to Houston to get quadruple his salary, Rodman will be dumped and end up dying in Los Angeles. Having made the necessary proportions and differences, today there is a similar case. Liverpool recently won less than those Bulls and the manager who created them left six months ago, but at the moment they are first in the Premier League at +6 on the second with the best attack and best defence, they dominate the Champions League table with 6 wins out of 6 and only one goal conceded, they are in the running for the other two national cups and in the meantime the three symbolic stars of the team are wobbling. They arrived practically together in 2017: Alexander-Arnold entered the first team on a permanent basis while they took Salah from Roma and, a few months later, Van Dijk from Southampton. Eight years later, they reached the end of their contract. There is another difference compared to the Bulls: they already knew it would be the last dance, here it still is. But the very fact that we arrive in January still in the negotiation phase, with the three big names free to reach an agreement with any other club, is not a comforting sign.