The tension around Liverpool this season has been simmering for months, but Mohamed Salah’s explosive postmatch remarks at Elland Road have turned it into full-blown crisis theatre. For the first time in years, the idea of Salah leaving midseason doesn’t feel like a distant rumour—it feels real. And inside the club, there’s no escaping a harsh truth: finding someone to fill his boots in January is close to impossible.

Over eight seasons, Salah has carried Liverpool’s attack with almost machine-like consistency. His numbers—250 goals and 116 assists in 420 games—are the sort most clubs spend decades trying to accumulate, not just one era. Even Liverpool’s long-standing targets—Antoine Semenyo at Bournemouth or Anthony Gordon at Newcastle—don’t come close to replicating that output, at least not immediately.

Liverpool’s summer spending spree, worth over €450 million, shows their appetite to rebuild: Alexander Isak (€145m), Florian Wirtz (€117m), Hugo Ekitike (€80m). Big names, big fees—but none of them are Salah-like in profile or productivity. So the search for a successor becomes a puzzle: find a high-volume attacking forward who can score, create, and shoulder the responsibility Salah carried every single week. That’s a profile that barely exists in world football.

Here are the names that Liverpool’s recruitment team would have circled—some realistic, some wildly ambitious—but all worthy of consideration.