When Mohamed Salah’s contract extension was announced just an hour before Arne Slot’s pre-match press conference, the Egyptian was understandably the talk of the Liverpool head coach’s media briefing. Fast forward a week after Virgil van Dijk followed suit on Thursday morning, and it was a slightly different story at the AXA Training Centre.
Sure, the Reds captain’s new deal was brought up as the Liverpool head coach praised his compatriot. But it created an inevitable elephant in the room in the process.
"It tells you that we want to keep our best players, the players that have played a great season for so many years in a row now,” the Dutchman replied when asked what statement it sent out securing the futures of both Salah and Van Dijk.
"That we are able to keep them when they are free agents tells you probably the ambitions we have for the upcoming years. I'm really happy that both of them extended.
"We've spoken about Mo last week and Virgil has been so important for us defensively, offensively, in and around the dressing room. A great personality and a great football player."
With two of the Reds’ star players now tied down, attention quickly turned to Trent Alexander-Arnold and his own expiring contract status. The Liverpool vice-captain is one of his side’s ‘best players’ after all.
Yet he continues to consider an offer from Real Madrid when his own deal expires. While it is understandable why, with Salah and Van Dijk’s futures now resolved, the next question would concern Alexander-Arnold, Slot’s response was equally as obvious.
"I think you would be surprised if I answer differently now than I've answered for the whole season," the Dutchman said. "It's nice that we've already done two announcements and we can talk about that for hours.
"But if you want to talk for hours to me about Trent, for hours it is the same answer. We don't talk about these things as long as they aren't done. And they aren't, which is why we don't talk in public about his situation.”
But Alexander-Arnold’s future was not the only inevitable topic that Slot would face in Kirkby on Friday morning.
Liverpool can of course win the Premier League title this weekend. Should Arsenal lose to Ipswich Town on Sunday, the Reds will be crowned champions if they beat Leicester City in the later kick-off.
It was telling just how full the AXA Training Centre media room was on Good Friday as the title-races nears its conclusion. It will have not been so busy since Jurgen Klopp's final media briefing last May.
And from the moment it opened its doors at 8.30am too, no less, with the majority of journalists arriving early courtesy of the quieter Bank Holiday roads.
But Leicester is just another game for Slot. Publicly, at least, he is not concerning himself with Arsenal or entertaining thoughts about winning the title just yet.
“My thoughts are not on that at all,” he insisted. “My thoughts are, as always, on Leicester and on our team: how to improve, what can we do better.
“We couldn’t do many things better in the first half against West Ham [United] but we could do a lot of things better in the second half. So, during the start of the week we have worked on that a lot and now we are working towards Leicester.
“One game at a time and influence the one we can influence, and that’s the Leicester game.
“The honest answer is no (I’m not thinking about winning the title). I’m not sure you believe me but that is the honest answer.
“My whole life I’m living in the moment, in the day, and I’m not looking backwards a lot and I’m not looking forwards a lot because it’s the type of person that I am, that I am not constantly looking back at what I have achieved at former clubs.
“That is also so difficult in football, people constantly tell you, ‘Try to enjoy it, try to enjoy the whole journey,’ but the only thing you are thinking about as a manager is, ‘Oh, at the weekend there is a game coming up as well and we need to win that and we need to win the next and we need to win the next.’
“So, maybe that’s one of the reasons: because I’m already so long in football that you get used to the fact of living day by day and trying to influence day by day.”
Slot might insist he is not thinking about winning the Premier League title, but that moment is getting closer and closer.
And should its fate still still not be fully decided the next time the Dutchman sits down in Kirkby for a pre-match press conference next week, Slot should brace himself for an even busier media room as Liverpool find themselves on the cusp of greatness.
