'Replacing Mo Salah a £150m problem' - Ex-Liverpool star verdict amid contract worries


Graeme Souness has claimed that Liverpool need to fork out around £150m to find a player who can replace Mohamed Salah’s impact.
Speaking on the Three Up Front podcast with Simon Jordan, Souness believes that Salah is a £150m player to replace. “Replacing Mohamed Salah wouldn’t cost Liverpool merely £70 million, it’d be double that. Even so, there isn’t a replacement out there.
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Hide Ad“There isn’t a like-for-like replacement out there who can score 30 goals a season. If there was, you’d be spending a lot more than £100 million to get them. The minute Liverpool come knocking, the price will be inflated because it’s Liverpool, they’re in the Premier League, and they’re under pressure to buy. They’ll pay a premium on a premium on a premium! They’re in a hard place.”
If we base the cost of Salah’s replacement to be within the bracket Souness suggested, it would mean that only a handful of players fall within such a category. Delving further, the options become more limited when we look at potential right-sided attackers. The issue with replacing Salah is that he is one of the best attackers in European football, hailed for his consistency and remarkable output which puts him in the elite bracket alongside the big names of the sport. His 223 goals and 99 assists in 368 games is testament to that.
To replace Salah, you need someone who can consistently contribute in terms of goals and assists, can shoulder the weight of being one of, if not, the most important attacker and is in and around their prime and has a strong fitness record - that certainly narrows down the target list.
Who could Liverpool sign?
If we look at the ‘best’ players in his position, there aren’t many who can hold a torch to him. Taking the most high-profile names, for example, most are unlikely to leave their current clubs such as Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka or Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise who has just moved to Germany. Rodrygo at Real Madrid is a top-class player but he isn’t quite in the same mould as a right-footed, right winger - but he can also play anywhere across the frontline if needed which makes him unique. Munich’s Leroy Sane could be available this summer for free if he doesn’t sign a new deal as well.
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Paris Saint-Germain’s Ousmane Dembele is among the top valued players but he has never demonstrated that top level consistency. Looking more close to home, Brentford’s Bryan Mbuemo has been listed, West Ham United duo Jarrod Bowen and Mohamed Kudus and younger talents such as Real Sociedad’s Takefusa Kubo and PSV’s Johan Bakayoko are also linked.
Losing Salah means losing around 20-30 goals and 10-20 assists a season - it is certainly a costly loss if he does go and a costly deal to replace. The levels he has shown and is continuing to show prove that replacing him may just be a thankless task, despite the small army of potential recruits that were listed.
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