01/05/2026

SPORTS FRIDAY | MAY 1, 2026

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LIVERPOOL said yesterday that they expected Mohamed Salah to be “available to play again before the end of this season” after injury threat ened to disrupt the star striker’s farewell to Anfield. Salah, who will leave the reigning Premier League champions after nine years at the end of the season, was forced off with a suspected ham string injury in Saturday’s 3-1 win at home to Crystal Palace. Liverpool are awaiting the results of a scan to determine the extent of the problem, but with just four games of the campaign remaining, there were fears that the 33-year-old Egypt international may not feature again this season. But a club statement issued yesterday said: “Liverpool FC can confirm Mohamed Salah is expected to be available to play again before the end of this season.” The statement added: “The issue that caused his withdrawal has now been confirmed as a minor muscle injury. It is, however, anticipated Salah will return to action ahead of 2025-26’s conclusion and his departure from the Reds this summer.” Salah arrived from Roma in 2017 and has made more than 400 appearances for Liverpool to date, with his 257 goals for the Merseysiders leaving him third in the club’s all-time goalscorers chart behind Ian Rush (346 goals) and Roger Hunt (285). Salah has won four Premier League Golden Boots and starred for Liverpool in both their 2019/20 and 2024/25 title triumphs as well as lifting the 2019 Champions League trophy. His Liverpool honours also include a Club World Cup, Uefa Super Cup, FA Cup and two League Cups. But with the goals drying up, his future at Anfield became the subject of intense speculation after a dramatic bust-up with Liverpool manager Arne Slot in December. Reds ‘expect Salah to be available’ before Anfield exit

Blueprint from Europe

The PSG and Bayern Munich lesson that the Premier League must take after the nine-goal feast at the Parc des Princes

Both PSG’s Khvicha Kvaratkhelia and Ousmane Dembele (below) play a huge role during their club’s thrilling match against Bayern Munich on Wednesday. – AFPPIC

Ű BY MIGUEL DELANEY

One was shaped by Clarence Seedorf and Wayne Rooney, who lamented the defending. Some of it was pitiful. Manuel Neuer didn’t even make a save, and one of his attempted kick-outs did lead to a PSG goal. If it seems churlish to discuss that amid so much fun, so much entertainment, one obvious inference from their commentary was to ask how “serious” this game actually was. There was almost a sense of the very scale of the scoreline removing some of the credibility, as if this wasn’t “real football”. There is a gloriously simple answer to that. It’s as “serious” as the end result of the Champions League final. The point of all this is to become European champions, after all. It doesn’t get more real than that in club football. The ends would justify the means, a sentence that feels odd to even say here given that it is more often used about the more pragmatic football anticipated in the other semi-final. It currently looks like either Bayern or PSG would just blow Arsenal and Atletico Madrid away, but it rarely works out like that in reality. Maybe the real difference, however, is as Kompany said. Both sides believe. They trust in their approach, even with all of the risks. This is just their way, as so many figures on both sides enthused. And yet, for all that this will provoke predictions about the future of football, there are fair questions over whether this way is possible in any other setting. If this 5-4 reminded you of what the game could be, you can’t escape the reality that it partly came out of what the game shouldn’t be. It was also said here before the game that both Bayern and PSG greatly benefit from their immense financial superiority over their domestic leagues, with one of them a Qatari sportswashing project. There’s always another side to this in the modern game. That allows them this physical and psychological freshness, as well as the space to commit to this. Some of it is of course ideological, yes. Luis Enrique has been open about that. Kompany was similarly trying this at Burnley. Some of it is also circumstance. The Independent understands Premier League coach privately said after the game, it’s a lot more difficult to commit to this when your exhausted players are again playing an expensively

assembled defence at the weekend. And that may have led to another side in this game. As sensational as the attacking was, it was partly allowed from that dismal defending. It was like these team structures just weren’t prepared for this level of attacking quality. Who would be prepared, you might ask, but it did seem more pronounced. It was like both sides had forgotten how to defend because they don’t usually have to do it. That’s why it only offers some lessons for the Premier League. Still, it would be encouraging for clubs to take the mindset on board. You can see why Sir Jim Ratcliffe would love Luis Enrique at United. Who else might come calling now? Chelsea? And yet such questions, such technical caveats, feel a little out of step with a game that was mostly about abandon; about going for it. And they’ve promised to do it all again. As to who wins at the end of it, PSG feel like they should have killed the tie at 5-2. Luis Diaz’s goal feels like it could be very significant. A little like one of

H AVING put out a team to do that, Luis Enrique perhaps put it best. “You have to congratulate the opponents, the players,” the Paris Saint-Germain coach said after his side’s raucous 5-4 win over Bayern Munich. “I’ve never seen a game with that rhythm before.” You could say this first leg was unique, given how it set a record for a Champions League semifinal, but there’s somehow more to come. There was even the promise of more to come, as befitting the attacking attitudes that drove this entire spectacle. “Now we’ll go to Munich to try to win and qualify,” Ousmane Dembele said. “We’re going to attack and Bayern are going to attack.” Vincent Kompany agreed. “We could have scored more, and that has to give us belief.” So many others were left with a renewed belief in the sport as it is played. “Every football fan loves a game like that,” Marquinhos said. That feeling might be all the deeper given the debate about set-pieces and structure that has defined so much of the season, especially in England. There are some lessons there for the Premier League – but only some. This was indeed like watching a different sport, as was previewed in these very pages on the morning of the game; There were moments when it certainly didn’t feel like watching 11-a side football at all, such was that scoreline and also just the general chaos of play. One of the most captivating elements of the game was how often one of the electric attackers just seemed to be aggressively running straight at goal. It was the source of at least three of the goals, most notably Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s brilliant initial equaliser, as well as Luis Diaz’s run to win the Harry Kane penalty to set it off. Luis Diaz’s own eventual goal, a luscious strike to make it 5-4, was supremely supplied by Kane’s delightful ball, also had touches of Dennis Bergkamp against Argentina. That’s the level we are talking about in terms of attacking. One of many other talking points is meanwhile how Liverpool let this Luis Diaz go. Would he have been able to do this in the more restrained Premier League? And yet, partly because there were so many goals, there were also so many more debates.

He accused Liverpool of throwing him “under the bus” after he was benched for three games in a row and said that he had no relationship with the Dutch boss. Liverpool are currently fourth in the Premier League table, with four games remaining this season – starting with Sunday’s clash against arch-rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford – and on course to com pete in next term’s Champions League. – AFP

Kvaratskhelia’s runs, though, it’s almost impossible to know which way this is going to turn. – The Independent