When Alexander Isak was finally confirmed as a Liverpool player, many supporters from rival title challengers wrote off their team’s chances of toppling the champions this season there and then. Even after seeing Liverpool make it four wins from four at Burnley, however, many may be reconsidering such a position.
Having broken the British transfer record for one multi-faceted forward in Florian Wirtz and added one of Europe’s most exciting attackers in Hugo Ekitike to add to a title-winning, 86-goal strikeforce from last season, Liverpool appeared to be simply satirising the competition when they launched another record bid for Isak.
Did they even need him? Spending £125m on another striker just seemed downright frivolous. Yet, after Liverpool were so listless and unimaginative in attack at Burnley, before Mohamed Salah’s most fortunate of get-out-of-jail stoppage-time penalties maintained their winning start to the new campaign, Isak’s arrival is in fact out of necessity than frivolity.
For all the myriad of talent in the forward department, what was glaring in the meek Burnley showing was the lack of an attacking focal point.
Ekitike was again deployed centrally at Turf Moor, but offered threat, fleetingly, when cutting in from the flanks. Wirtz again struggled to really have an impact, while Cody Gakpo’s speciality, coming off the touchline and whipping a cross or shot in on his right foot, will ensure he cannot be dragged into the middle.
Salah, however, although he was once again the matchwinner, is perhaps the biggest cause for concern. The Egyptian always struggles at Burnley, having scored only once against the Clarets in his Liverpool career, prior to Sunday’s clash engulfed by a swirling Lancashire wind off Pendle Hill.
He is rarely, however, this quiet. He didn’t win a single duel all match, didn’t complete a single dribble, created one opportunity and did not muster a shot at goal, all match, until his winning penalty.
And it is not the first time he has been so underwhelming since the Premier League restart. It is understandable at 33, but how long can he continue to get away with it, and rely on his elevated status in the team?
“I’ve thought about almost every substitution you can make,” Slot said when asked whether he would take Salah off. “But in the end, you always come back to the fact that I don’t want to leave this stadium with a draw.
“With taking Mo off – if you need a goal, you leave him on. It will probably happen this season or maybe next season, but it probably won’t happen a lot.”
Like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, Salah never misses out, unless rested. He is never substituted. You don’t beg a generational talent to stay twice and then leave him out.
In any other team, Salah’s position would be watertight, completely untouchable. But Liverpool have had an all-timer of a transfer window, broke the British record twice to bring in two of the best forwards in the world, and leaving Salah in there, week in, week out, when he remains this ineffective, could, even if it may seem unlikely at this stage, prove costly come May.
Isak’s return to full fitness gives Slot one of the most luxurious of dilemmas in Premier League history. If Salah’s form continues at this limp rate, however, the Liverpool boss may in fact have to do the unthinkable, for the greater good.
The Swede solves the one issue remaining in this near-perfect Liverpool unit. With him through the middle, Slot can then rotate the wealth of forward options he has at his disposal around the new arrival.
How Salah fits into that may define whether Slot creates another all-conquering Liverpool force that goes down in the history books or not.
Get that right and then rival supporters will be left to go back to their initial pessimistic season expectations.
