The pen was gripped and the smile was beaming.
"I am delighted to have agreed a new deal with Liverpool and have my future secured for the long term," said Luis Suarez on December 20, 2013.
"We have some great players and the team is growing and improving all the time. I believe I can achieve the ambitions of winning trophies and playing at the very highest level with Liverpool. My aim is to help get us there as quickly as possible."
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Seven months later, he was gone.
They weren't just any old seven months though, of course.
They were months in which Liverpool embarked on a thrill ride under Brendan Rodgers which took them to the cusp of what would have been a first league title in 24 years, only for it all to cruelly fall away at almost the last hurdle.
But as terrific as that Reds side were, any suggestion that this title challenge was the beginning of a sustained period of success was already looking hollow even as Manchester City were lifting the trophy.
This was a very thin Liverpool squad, a side built on sand, and when Suarez began to agitate for a move five months in to his new five year contract then you could see what was coming.
This time he left, with the infamous clause Liverpool had removed from his previous deal no longer valid, allowing them to get a more lucrative fee from Barcelona believed to be worth around £65m - some £24,999,999 more than Arsenal were offering a year previously.
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Yet the very existence of that clause showed just how relatively simple it was for the Reds to dangle a new deal in front of Suarez, give him the most money at the club because he deserved it - believed to be an initial £170,000 a week at the time - insist that he wasn't joining a Premier League rival, and then fail to kick up much of a fuss when he did eventually leave for more lucrative, and more successful pastures new.
But almost eight years on from Suarez's final Anfield deal, it is now much harder for the Reds to negotiate one for Mohamed Salah.
For starters those lucrative predators no longer look so enticing, and when the merits of the more successful clubs in the world are discussed then Liverpool are now in that conversation.
The money has gone up too. Way, way up. Liverpool might not keep followers of transfer rumour mill entertained but they do fork out huge amount on the wages of their playing staff.
Salah is right now the best player on that staff, and the best in the world.
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He wants to be compensated as much, but then if his pay dwarfs the rest of the Reds squad then what does that say for the harmony among the group?
Liverpool being much better than they were has created problems that they could only have dreamed of having back in 2013.
Back then it was clear that Suarez was happy to just pass through, and see Liverpool as a step to something greater.
Now the Reds are near the pinnacle, Salah surely wants to stay and Liverpool want to keep him.
It's just a lot harder to keep everyone happy.
