Liverpool are now faced with the enormous task of recruiting an elite successor to Mo Salah, with the Egyptian confirming this week that he’ll be leaving Anfield at the end of the season.
The 33-year-old will depart with one of the greatest legacies of any player to have represented the Merseyside club, for whom he’s scored 255 goals over the past nine years and played a leading role during an era of domestic and European success.
He’s set standards which’ll be virtually impossible to match, but alas LFC will need to identify and recruit a replacement who they think would be capable of filling the massive void on the right flank.
Transfer insider Dean Jones has claimed (via TEAMtalk) that Liverpool have a seven-player shortlist of prospective successors to Salah.
It includes two Bundesliga wingers in Yan Diomande and Michael Olise, Paris Saint-Germain duo Bradley Barcola and Desire Doue, Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams and two Premier League players in Jarrod Bowen and Anthony Gordon.
TEAMtalk sources cited another forward from the English top flight as someone under consideration at Anfield – Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye.
Of those eight shortlisted options, who’d realistically be the most attainable for Liverpool as a successor to Salah?
It’s not unknown for players to switch directly between Merseyside rivals (remember Nick Barmby?), but such transfers are rare and it’d be hard to envisage Ndiaye making the move across town. Similarly, given the tempestuous nature of Alexander Isak’s transfer from Newcastle last summer, enticing Gordon could be tough.
It’s also difficult to imagine Barcola or Doue wanting to leave Champions League holders PSG when they’re enjoying plenty of game-time in the French capital.
Williams and Bowen might be more attainable, especially the latter if West Ham are relegated, although the two standout candidates would appear to be the Bundesliga duo.
Diomande has been a revelation for RB Leipzig this season, contributing 11 goals and eight assists, and Liverpool have a positive working relationship with the Red Bull-owned outfit from the purchases of Naby Keita, Ibrahima Konate and Dominik Szoboszlai.
Olise would be the dream signing, with the Frenchman racking up 16 goals and 27 assists this term, although persuading Bayern Munich to sell him could be difficult, and the Bavarian giants would reportedly demand as much as £120m for the ex-Crystal Palace maestro.
Whoever might arrive at Anfield as Salah’s replacement, they’ll have an extremely hard act to follow, and it’s no exagerration to state that this is among the biggest recruitment decisions that LFC have faced in modern times.
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I know who we should sign, the guy at Newcastle, Alexander Isak. Failing that, there’s a cracking young number ten playing in Germany, I think he’s called Wirtz, but we could also go for the young French forward who was at PSG a while back, he’s really blossoming at Frankfurt, Hugo something or other…
Stop all the transfer talks and focus on getting ucl spot. Failing that you will not get anyone and you can’t stop our best players leaving. If slot cannot promise ucl spot, get him out now.
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