Liverpool's solution to Mo Salah's AFCON problem is obvious | OneFootball

How will Salah be replaced when he's at AFCON?

Another problem that will be at the forefront of Arne Slot's mind right now is how will Mohamed Salah be covered when he meets up with Egypt in December and January for the African Cup of Nations?

Federico Chiesa's future is directly part of this, since the Italian plays on the right-wing but rarely gets minutes since he's constantly in competition with Salah and often sidelined with an injury.

In Frimpong, Liverpool have a potential solution, since the Dutchman played at right wing-back for Leverkusen, meaning he is used to playing a forward role. Last season he had 14 goal contributions.

But it's plausible that more options could be required and Liverpool have already spent heavily.

So how else could this problem be solved? One way is to keep Harvey Elliott this summer and give him a more extensive role in the team by not over-playing Salah and managing his minutes.

The Egyptian has cemented his place in the team, having delivered elite attacking numbers over the last eight seasons, but he is now 33 years old and eventually you would expect him to slow down.

His 57 goal contributions last season tell a different story, but it was the best campaign of his career and the likelihood of how delivering similar numbers is particularly low, but I guess we'll have to see.

Nonetheless, approaches for Elliott have so far fallen short of his market value and the Englishman is still very much 'reviewing his situation'. Keeping him in the team is still a very likely situation.

If that were to happen, then for most of the season, Liverpool would have Stefan Bajcetic, Wataru Endo, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wirtz, alongside Elliott as their midfield options - a particularly stacked squadron to be choosing from.

And as mentioned earlier, he would help Frimpong to carry the burden of covering Salah when AFCON rolls around. A successful campaign would simultaneously raise his market value, allowing the club to take even higher offers for him when next summer arrives. If you're still not convinced, then the homegrown quota might be worth looking at. Elliott ticks that box for us at the very least.

So perhaps consider such a state of affairs in the next few weeks because our two-time U21 Euros winner is worth a pretty penny and selling him for less than he's worth would be poor business.