The ECHO’s Liverpool writers discuss what Arne Slot should do with his forward line when Mohamed Salah departs for the Africa Cup of Nations next month
Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak could be used as a pair in Mohamed Salah’s absence(Image: Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Liverpool’s return after the international break can’t come soon enough. But there is another international issue that awaits the Reds next month.
Mohamed Salah will once again depart for the Africa Cup of Nations in December, with this year’s tournament moving slightly earlier than previous editions and ensuring that the Liverpool talisman will potentially miss more games than he has in the past.
And with questions over the Reds’ setup this season, and indeed over Salah’s involvement in the starting line-up at all, minds have turned to just how Arne Slot could line up when the Egyptian is off representing his country. We asked ECHO writers what they think.
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It would be no real shock if there were some at Liverpool who were quietly hoping for a disappointing showing from Egypt at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations.
Anfield officials have always wished nothing but success for Mohamed Salah on the international stage and have accommodated the Pharaohs captain as much as possible to help over the course of his time on Merseyside.
But with the Premier League campaign a difficult one, being without the top scorer of the last eight season is not ideal at a time when the fixtures begin to pile up around mid-to-late December.
And with Salah wanted by Egypt for a December 14 friendly against Nigeria, there is still the prospect of Arne Slot being made to do without his talisman for even longer than initially expected. Those talks, as the ECHO reported on Monday, remain ongoing as it stands.
Having said that, though, a prolonged Salah absence at least gives Slot the chance to tinker with a view to what it might actually look like when the Reds’ all-time leading scorer in the Premier League finally walks away from Anfield.
Such an eventuality is why so much money has been invested in bringing the likes of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak to the club in the summer months. The Reds forked out an eye-watering sum of £320m to reshape their forward line in the transfer window and there is no doubt all three are the future at Liverpool.
As a front two, Isak and Ekitike cost £204m and while the pair have tended to rotate as the No.9 in the front three, now could be the time to play them together.
So does Slot give Isak and Ekitike a run up top as a partnership? Stylistically, they are very similar and with Wirtz, as a central attacking midfielder, able to load the bullets, it’s a potentially potent partnership.
That could see Cody Gakpo drop out the team and become the first cab off the rank when changes are needed in an attacking sense. Federico Chiesa is also on hand if needed.
Slot deployed Wirtz wide right in a 4-4-2 in October’s 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt with Isak and Ekitike starting together only for the former to pull up with a groin issue and lasting only for 45 minutes.
But with Salah set to be in Morocco for the closing weeks of 2025, might Slot reprise that system that worked to good effect in Frankfurt? The caveat to that, of course, is that the Bundesliga side were woeful defensively on the night and Slot’s side also scored two goals from corners.
But with Salah due to be AFCON-bound soon enough, Slot might finally have to unleash Isak and Ekitike in the same team for a spell.
Mark Jones
While Mohamed Salah’s previous AFCON appearances have elicited a sense of dread among Liverpool supporters, it doesn’t quite feel the same this time around.
It would be insulting and downright wrong to suggest that the Reds won’t miss their third highest goalscorer of all-time, but this time around the absence feels like an opportunity. If the summer recruitment drive was all about preparing Liverpool for a post-Salah world, then here it is temporarily.
The hope is that the Reds will have picked up some decent results by the time Salah departs for Morocco, even if it ends up being earlier than planned and he is forced to miss the Brighton game on December 13. The coming weeks provide plenty of chances for the club’s summer additions to make their mark, and frankly the likes of Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz are going to have to do that some time soon.
And it has almost felt as though Arne Slot has been using his side’s Champions League away games to prepare them for being without Salah. At Galatasaray the Egyptian was left on the bench as the front three was made up of Cody Gakpo, Hugo Ekitike and Jeremie Frimpong, with Wirtz stationed behind them as the central No.10.
The in Frankfurt, on a much more pleasurable evening for the Reds, there was no Salah again from the start and Ekitike and Isak were partnered in attack, with Gakpo and Wirtz wide in a 4-4-2.
Liverpool’s performance that night was one of the more fluid of the season, with the injuries suffered by Isak and Frimpong the only negatives. The Swede should return to the pitch in some capacity against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, and so it is time to lean into his £125m gifts.
Without Salah I’d start Isak in attack alongside Ekitike, with Wirtz roaming in from the left and Dominik Szoboszlai raiding from the right, tucking inside and allowing Conor Bradley or hopefully soon Frimpong to bomb past him.
That means you can keep Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister in a balanced midfield, and have the likes of Gakpo, Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha as attacking options from the bench.