Sources: FSG want Salah deal agreed by 1 January after sensational £120m Liverpool twist
Liverpool are increasingly hopeful of agreeing a new long-term contract with Mohamed Salah, Football Insider has been told.
Boston-based owners Fenway Sports Group are under pressure to tie down the Egyptian superstar, who wants £500,000-a-week to stay at Anfield.
A Liverpool source has told Football Insider that there is a growing sense a deal can be agreed following recent discussions.
The source explained negotiations are "tricky" and at a "delicate stage" but both parties are keen to reach an agreement, which has given hope a compromise can be secured.
FSG have long wanted a deal in place ahead of 1 January, when the next transfer window opens, but are unwilling to completely bow to Salah's pay demands.
The red-hot forward has gone public with his desire to spend the rest of his playing career at Anfield.
But he has pointedly said the ball is in the court of the owners to make him an offer he will accept.
The club hierarchy recognise that hopes of tying Salah down long term will all but evaporate if negotiations drag on into next summer.
He has a contract that runs until the summer of 2023 but would be well placed to secure a cut-price transfer if he enters the final 12 months of his deal.
FSG are aware they are going to have to not only make Salah, 29, comfortably the best-paid player in the club's history to keep him but also catapult him into the world's top bracket of earners.
A £500,000-a-week deal is equivalent to an astonishing £117million across four-and-a-half years, which is the length of the deal the goal machine wants.
Salah has increased his bargaining power with his extraordinary performances this season.
He has started all 21 of the club's Premier League and Champions League matches, scoring 20 goals and supplying nine assists.