It’s all going to plan on the pitch for Arne Slot but big decisions loom for the Premier League leaders.
Liverpool are four points clear with a game in hand on second-placed Chelsea and have only lost one Premier League fixture since Slot succeeded Jurgen Klopp in the summer.
But one of the biggest reasons for Liverpool’s lead at the top is the form of Mohamed Salah, whose contract expires in June. The 32-year-old has consistently been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia and an agreement to keep him at Anfield has not yet been done.
Who will Liverpool sign if Salah leaves?
Two potential replacements have emerged according to Caught Offside’s Daily Briefing. The gap left behind by Salah, a Premier League and Champions League winner with the Reds and ranked first in FourFourTwo’s list of the best Premier League wingers ever, would be impossible to fill.
But fans would have a lot to get excited about if Slot gets a chance to work with either of Liverpool’s top targets from two of the club’s biggest European competitors.
Like Salah, Bayern Munich’s Leroy Sane will be out of contract at the end of the season and would be available on a free transfer. The 28-year-old has played in the Premier League before. He won consecutive league titles with Manchester City in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Sane scored 25 Premier League goals after joining Man City from Schalke and has won three Bundesliga titles since returning to Germany with Bayern.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia will still have two years left on his Napoli contract at the end of 2024-25 and the transfer fee required to persuade them to sell him would be significant.
‘Kvaradona’ impressed for Georgia at the European Championship this year but has been outstanding since moving to Serie A in 2022.
At 23, Kvaratskhelia has an exciting future ahead of him as one of Europe’s rising stars. He has all the attributes Liverpool would need to find in a Salah successor and plenty of individual magic to boot.
Salah has scored a massive 227 goals in all competitions since joining Liverpool in 2017.
According to reports, he wants to sign a new deal but the security of a multi-year contract on the sort of salary that would stop Salah being tempted away to Saudi Arabia means it’s not a simple negotiation.
If it comes to it, either Sane or Kvaratskhelia would have a lot to offer in Salah’s place. But the Egyptian should and will be Liverpool’s priority for now.
2024-12-12 17:00:00