Carragher Questions Salah's Move to Trabzonspor
Jamie Carragher does not understand Mohamed Salah’s choice. Not one bit.
The former Liverpool defender, speaking on the Football Ramble, laid bare his disbelief that the winger has traded Anfield and Europe’s top table for Trabzonspor and the Turkish Super Lig.
“I never believed he was going to go to Saudi, because number one, he's too good for that. I think he can be playing in Serie A. Turkey for me feels a level too low,” Carragher said, summing up his frustration in a single, sharp line.
Carragher wanted a Serie A encore
For Carragher, the issue is not that Salah has left Liverpool. Players move on. Legacies are sealed and then carried elsewhere. The problem, in his eyes, is where the “Egyptian King” has chosen to take the next act of his career.
While Trabzonspor celebrate the arrival of a global superstar, Carragher sees a missed opportunity. He expected the 34-year-old to follow a path closer to Cristiano Ronaldo’s, staying at what he calls a “prestigious” club, one of the old giants with marble halls and European nights under the lights.
Carragher admitted he thought Salah was destined for Italy. AC Milan. Juventus. A historic shirt, a famous stadium, a league that still sells itself as a stage for the game’s greats.
“I was convinced he'd end up at an AC Milan or Juventus or somewhere like that, maybe his wages were a problem,” he said. “I don't know him, obviously have never spoken to him. But he's like Ronaldo, he's so driven, his numbers mean so much to him. I thought, he can still do this in Turkey by the way, but I thought he'd want to play at a real prestigious club.”
That is the core of his argument. In Carragher’s mind, Salah still belongs in the glare of Serie A, La Liga, the Premier League – not on a quieter, more distant channel.
Prestige vs payday
The criticism bites hardest around one theme: level.
Carragher believes Salah has traded the relentless scrutiny and intensity of a top-five league for a lucrative contract in a competition that will not test him in the same way. Reports in Turkey say Trabzonspor have assembled a package worth around €17 million per year to land him. Serious money, even for a player who walked away from £400,000 a week at Liverpool.
To Carragher, that shift in setting matters more than the size of the salary.
Even with Trabzonspor heading into the Europa League next season, he does not think the weekly rhythm of the Turkish Super Lig matches Salah’s status or remaining ability.
“Obviously his wage demands have put a few people off but I thought he might almost curb those demands a little bit to almost get a better club,” he continued. “To go to an AC Milan or Juventus or whoever it may be, play at the San Siro, still playing in big games, still playing in Europe. Turkey just feels like... I just think he's better than that.”
The message is blunt: lower the wage, keep the stage.
A new kingdom in the Black Sea
Salah, though, has made his choice and appears fully committed to it.
He arrives in the north of Turkey as the undisputed star, the face of a club desperate to rip the title back from Istanbul’s heavyweights. Trabzonspor last lifted the Super Lig trophy in 2022. They are gambling that Salah’s goals, aura and professionalism will close the gap on Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.
He will not be alone. The dressing room already carries familiar names to Premier League followers, with Manchester United loanee Andre Onana and former Manchester City defender Stefan Savic among those he will join. It is a squad with European experience, now fronted by a player who has conquered England and Europe.
The scenes at Istanbul Atatürk Airport underlined exactly what he means to his new supporters. The welcome was frenzied, devotional. If Carragher questions the prestige of the league, there is no doubting the scale of the adoration. In Trabzon, Salah will not just be a marquee signing. He will be treated like a deity.
He leaves Merseyside having done it all: Premier League, Champions League, every major trophy Liverpool could put in his hands. His numbers, his records, his moments – they are already etched into the club’s modern history.
Carragher’s fear is that the final chapter at the elite level has closed too soon. Trabzonspor’s belief is that it has simply moved to a different shore. Only the next two seasons will reveal who read the situation better.
