Mailbag: Liverpool without Salah/TAA, Alonso at Madrid, Chelsea and more!

Let's get stuck into these questions

[the email version I sent out mixed up Fran García and Jesús Vallejo. I meant García, my bad]

Hi, everyone. Thank you, as ever, to everyone who asked a question except my dad. They’re consistently of a high standard and I feel incredibly proud to have such a smart and engaged readership. But you’re not here for the preamble. Let’s dive in.

Stats are from FBRef unless stated otherwise

Hugh asks…

In a world where both TAA and Salah leave Liverpool summer, what the hell do they do next?

So this would obviously be a problem. My first question is: what would Liverpool need to do anyway?

The first eleven has been excellent this season, but they feel thin in places. Virgil van Dijk isn’t getting any younger and Ibrahima Konaté hasn’t been flawless recently, so another centre back would be good. Andy Robertson looks like he needs a long-term successor pretty soon. While Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch have looked great in midfield, everyone knows Liverpool failed to get Martín Zubimendi, and Arne Slot seems to want more control than he’s getting from his midfield. Those are the three places they would need to buy really well in to have a perfect window next summer.

Three new signings become five if Trent and Salah leaves, and that is A Problem. In that scenario, you’re either trusting Kostas Tsimikas to play more minutes at left back or backing Jarell Quansah to play a bigger part than we’ve seen from him. You’re then building a really different side. Right now, this is Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool managed by Slot. Losing both Salah and Trent would truly mean the Dutchman, sporting director Richard Hughes and CEO of football Michael Edwards building something new.

They’re not going to find a right back who offers as much creatively as Trent. They’re just not. So it probably means finding a more “normal” player in that role, and expecting more on the ball from whichever central midfielder they sign. I think you’re asking a lot of your midfield, and it’s probably worse on balance, but it’s doable.

Replacing Salah is harder in the short term. You just kind of have to find a right winger who’s really good at everything, and even then, he probably won’t be as good as Salah. I don’t think Liverpool have room to sign a second attacker with this much upheaval, so you really are banking on the guys already there to deliver more than they have. He’s less important than Trent in the long term just because he’s 32 (I mean, just imagine being that old), but it’s a harder problem for now, because he’s not creating tactical quirks beyond “really good attacker”.

So… yeah I would get at least one of them signed right now!