Sadio Mané is aware that Liverpool’s strategy for Mohamed Salah may become obvious as soon as the January transfer wwindow.
and he must hope that the clue regarding the dream transfer is not missed. However, a choose choice might not be available.
Liverpool has a curious habit of conducting business in the January transfer market.
Considering FSG is so focused on finding value, it seems odd that major deals have so often been sanctioned mid-season, including in each of the last two campaigns.
But perhaps Liverpool does not subscribe to the received wisdom on the topic.
After all, neither Cody Gakpo nor Luis Díaz look like poor pieces of business — both were secured for very reasonable fees, in fact, and appear to have provided Jürgen Klopp with natural heirs to Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané respectively.
Some might argue that Salah will not be directly ‘replaced’ in the manner of Mané or Firmino when the time comes.
After all, along with Gakpo and Díaz, Klopp already has Darwin Núñez and Diogo Jota to call upon; Liverpool could sign no new attackers and still have one of the most exciting forward lines in the league.
However, if Liverpool is to try and sign someone who can at least pick up some of the slack on the right wing, then January will be a key time, as Mané and Firmino can attest.
If Klopp adds a new attacker to the roster, history tells us that there is a good chance we could be entering Salah’s final six months at Anfield.
Ultimately, though, it’s clear that value can only be found in January if the right player is available.
And Liverpool might well conclude that the perfect candidate for replacing Salah is no longer on the market.
While Ollie Watkins and Unai Emery have been taking deserved headlines as Aston Villa has stormed up to fifth, just four points off the summit, a man who warrants a little more attention is Moussa Diaby.
A Premier League move has seemed to beckon for years, and he has not underwhelmed after finally making the switch.
Since at least the previous Salah contract crisis, Diaby is a name that has been thrown around as a possible successor.
A left-footed right winger, his consistent output in the Bundesliga was eye-catching: nine goals and nine assists in his final season, 13 and 12 the year before that, four and 12 in 2020/21, and five and five in his debut Bayer Leverkusen campaign.
In the past, this slight bias towards assists rather than goals might have dampened Liverpool’s appetite for Diaby as an heir to Salah’s throne.
But as the Egyptian King evolves his role, the Aston Villa man looks a better fit than ever.
Salah leads the way in the Premier League for expected assists this season (4.4).
He’s not far behind on goals, either, underlining exactly why Liverpool will be in no rush to lose him, but the goalscoring burden is nonetheless being spread a little more evenly around Klopp’s team.
That trend will surely accelerate as Núñez gets fully settled.
Lo and behold, Diaby is one of the few players even vaguely in the same ballpark, sitting fourth in the division with 3.1 expected assists.
That’s ahead of the likes of James Maddison, Pedro Neto and Bukayo Saka.
His tally of actual assists should really be at four after the weekend clash with West Ham.
With the score at 0-0, his incisive pass left Watkins a tap-in, which he contrived to drag wide — a miss he more than made up for later, it has to be said.
Emery is even playing Diaby in something akin to the Salah role this season, using him and Watkins almost like split strikers.
He is the perfect hybrid between wide player and center-forward, with a track record of goals and assists at a high level.
But Aston Villa is flush with cash now. It’s also knocking on the door of the Champions League places.
Even if Liverpool is still in a position where it could flex its transfer muscle, it surely could not do so as soon as January.
Perhaps if Salah were to defy expectations and stay beyond next summer, Diaby could come onto the radar for January 2025.
Even then, FSG would still be looking at a winter deal more like Virgil van Dijk than Gakpo or Díaz, no doubt with a need to shatter the transfer record once more.
But with Mané and Firmino already replaced, the final piece is looking more tantalizing than ever — Liverpool must just hope it has not missed the boat.
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