Mohamed Salah’s recent public outburst comes at a time Liverpool are already considering his long-term replacement.
While the 33-year-old’s ill-considered interview with the open press on Saturday has not made things easy, Liverpool will have already been assessing how best to pivot when he does leave the club.
It was supposed to be a decision that would only be made and executed in 2027, with Salah’s future now potentially set to be decided in January, Liverpool could look to accelerate plans to replace him.
The Egyptian only signed a new contract in April this year, reportedly worth in the region of £485,000 per week, but he could leave the club just eight short months later. Mind you, three of those months came during the off-season.
Liverpool view Yan Diomande as the future at right wing amid Salah speculation
According to a report from TEAMtalk transfer insider Fraser Fletcher, Liverpool are in “negotiations with the representatives of RB Leipzig’s 19-year-old sensation Yan Diomande.”
The teenager has earned rave reviews this season for his form in Germany and Liverpool have noticed. They are reportedly in “daily contact” with the player’s agents to ensure they are well-placed to make a move to sign him when the time comes.
The catch, however, is that Leipzig consider the player to be worth a club-record €100m (£88m), which will more than likely hamper Liverpool’s interest so soon after spending £466million in the transfer window just past.
Considering Liverpool paid £78m to sign Hugo Ekitike, it’s reasonable to suggest they will not sanction such a large fee for Diomande even if he already has seven goals and four assists this season.
Is buying from the Bundesliga wise?
Many online have criticised Liverpool’s decision to sign Florian Wirtz, citing the Bundesliga as an inferior division as the reason for why he has so far failed to translate his goalscoring and assisting to the Premier League.
Last season, Wirtz scored 16 goals and assisted 15. This season, he has just four assists and no goals.
However, that type of analysis is lazy.
For one, it completely ignores the fact that Ekitike, Liverpool’s top goalscorer this season, arrived from the Bundesliga as well.
Another is that Wirtz is hardly to blame that he joined a team with the understanding that he was walking into a team that was established with a functioning system in place.
That hasn’t been the case. Arne Slot, for all his success last season, does not know what his best team is and Wirtz has suffered as a result.