{"id":747012,"date":"2026-08-23T08:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/747012\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T08:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:50:11","slug":"liverpool-why-alexander-isak-florian-wirtz-must-step-up-after-mohamed-salahs-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/747012\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool: Why Alexander Isak & Florian Wirtz must step up after Mohamed Salah’s exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

No player has scored more goals on the first matchday of a Premier League season than Mohamed Salah for Liverpool<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But when the Reds begin their 2026-27 campaign under Andoni Iraola at Newcastle<\/a> on Sunday (kick-off 16:30 BST) , Salah will be playing for Trabzonspor against Istanbul Basaksehir in the Turkish Super Lig, some 2,100 miles away.<\/p>\n

It will be the first time since 2015 that Liverpool<\/a> will start a season without any of Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino in their squad.<\/p>\n

Between 2015 and 2026, that trio scored a combined 488 goals (Salah 257, Mane 120, Firmino 111) for the Reds. <\/p>\n

Salah netted 10 of those goals on the opening matchday – a Premier League record.<\/p>\n

With the Egypt superstar out of the picture, the top scorer in Liverpool<\/a>‘s current squad is Cody Gakpo with just 50 Reds goals.<\/p>\n

When Liverpool<\/a> signed Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike for a combined \u00a3320m last summer, the future was very much in mind.<\/p>\n

It is impossible for one player to replicate Salah’s achievements, with his goalscoring and creative burden needing to be shared.<\/p>\n

Ekitike, 24, had an impressive start to life at Anfield before rupturing his Achilles tendon in April, and the hope is he will be fit for the second half of this season.<\/p>\n

And both Isak, 26, and Wirtz, 23, will be expected to lead the way in this new Liverpool<\/a> era after disappointing debut campaigns.<\/p>\n

When it was confirmed in March Salah would leave this summer, Liverpool<\/a> were expected to make another statement signing – but with the season about to begin they are yet to do so.<\/p>\n

“We need a squad that is able to compete on all four fronts, that’s the only way to try to be successful,” captain Virgil van Dijk said this week. <\/p>\n

“Let’s see what the last couple weeks of the transfer window brings and then let’s go for it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No player has scored more goals on the first matchday of a Premier League season than Mohamed Salah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-747012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}