HERBERT: Please don't take the cash, Mo. Your place in Anfield is more precious

The smash-and-grab raid for Mohamed Salah has been coming. You could feel it in the air on a sultry night in Riyadh a few years ago, soon after Saudi Arabia had bought Newcastle United, in the testimony of the locals, who knew precisely which player they wanted their leaders to appropriate.

‘Salah would be huge here. He is a player of the Middle East, not just Egypt. He’s the one our country wants,’ an extremely confident English-speaking Saudi told me as I walked the streets that evening, searching in vain for evidence of any interest in the Gulf state’s new Premier League trophy asset.

‘Liverpool, Liverpool, Mo Salah,’ shouted a boy, hanging from a car window.

So it is safe to assume that beyond a transfer fee exploding the economics of British football, more personal wealth would be lavished on Salah from the Saudi state apparatus than his children and his children’s children would even have the imagination to spend.

And because the obscene numbers have chipped away at any notion of allegiance, commitment and sheer love of a place you came to call home, we are left waiting, watching and hoping today.

Hoping that it is not foolish sentiment to feel that the hallowed turf of Anfield — where Keegan, Dalglish, Souness and Gerrard once ran their race — might hold something more profound than the cash.

Hoping that flying towards the Kop end on myriad Saturday afternoons, the words of the anthem ‘running down the wing’ ringing in his ears and then that long, low refrain — ‘Salaaaah’ — will transcend brutal mathematical calculations for this player. Don’t do it, Mo Salah. Don’t take the cash.

There have been painfully few positive signs, these past few days. The Saudis have launched a full-frontal assault on Liverpool with their