Steven Gerrard knows exactly what it means to lose a superstar at Anfield. He’s lived through the exits, watched the rebuilds, and seen Liverpool somehow come again.
So when the subject turns to life after Mohamed Salah, he doesn’t pretend the challenge is anything but enormous – but he’s adamant the club won’t freeze.
Speaking on talkSPORT Breakfast, the former Liverpool captain laid it out plainly: replacing Salah like-for-like is almost impossible.
“I think the concern, if you’re trying to replace Salah, in terms of like-for-like, I think there are very few out there that you can go and grab,” Gerrard said. “Olise would be one, I would say, but I don’t think he’d be available.”
That single name – Michael Olise – has been enough to set rumour mills spinning. A left-footed right-sided forward, creative, incisive, and still young enough to grow into a leading role. On paper, he ticks a lot of boxes for a club staring at the prospect of filling Salah’s boots.
But Gerrard’s point ran deeper than just one target. Liverpool, he argued, have built a modern reputation on adapting, not cloning.
“From experience, being around Liverpool as a player, and also since I’ve left, Liverpool’s recruitment team will have different options, and that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll look for a like-for-like,” he explained.
He went back to the recent past to make it clear. When Sadio Mané departed, Liverpool didn’t sign a mirror image. They went for Luis Díaz, a winger with a different profile, different movements, different strengths. When Luis Suárez left, the club again reshaped rather than simply replaced.
“Liverpool have got a fantastic record of replacing top players that have gone before,” Gerrard said. “So I’ve got every confidence from a recruitment point of view that they’ll have different types of options, not necessarily a like-for-like.”
The non-negotiable, in his eyes, is output.
“One thing is for certain, they have to try and replace some kind of goal involvement in terms of goals and assists, which is extremely difficult, because they’ve been incredible for Liverpool for many years.”
That’s the crux of the Salah problem. You can change the style. You can tweak the system. But you cannot walk away from the numbers he has delivered.
Bayern shut the door on Olise
While Gerrard floated Olise as the kind of talent Liverpool might covet, the message from Germany has been blunt: look elsewhere.
Despite growing speculation over Liverpool’s interest, Bayern Munich’s hierarchy have moved quickly to shut down any suggestion that Olise could be prised away after just two seasons in the Bundesliga. Publicly and repeatedly, they have made it clear they are not in the mood to cash in.
Honorary president Uli Hoeness addressed the Liverpool links last month and did not bother to sugar-coat his stance.
“If that’s true… I don’t believe it is, but Liverpool spent 500 million euros this year and are having a very bad season,” Hoeness said. “So we won’t be contributing to them playing better next year.
“We play this game for our fans. We have 430,000 members, we have many millions of fans around the world, and it does them little good if we have 200 million euros in the bank and play worse football every Saturday because of it.”
That is Bayern in a sentence: political, powerful, and unapologetically focused on their own dominance. Selling a key attacker to help revive Liverpool’s season? Not on their agenda.
Sporting director Max Eberl then tightened the screw in an interview with Sport Bild, stripping the situation down to its legal reality.
“Michael has a contract with us until 2029, without a release clause – we’re relaxed.”
No clause. Long contract. No urgency to sell. For any club circling, that combination usually means one thing: either an eye-watering bid or no deal at all.
For Liverpool’s recruitment team, praised by Gerrard and tested more than once over the last decade, the message from Munich is clear. If Salah does move on and Olise remains locked behind Bayern’s resolve, the next great Anfield forward may have to come from a different direction entirely.
