Liverpool's No-Risk Solution: Jarrod Bowen as Salah's Replacement
Mohamed Salah is walking out of Anfield this summer, taking with him an era, a goal record, and a problem. Who replaces a forward who scored 257 times in 442 Liverpool games and terrorised the Premier League for nine seasons?
For Danny Murphy, one answer is hiding in plain sight – and now in the Championship.
Bowen in the spotlight after West Ham collapse
West Ham United’s relegation after 14 straight years in the top flight has thrown their biggest assets into the shop window. Jarrod Bowen, their captain and talisman, is suddenly a top-tier attacker marooned outside the Premier League.
His numbers survived the drop, even if his team did not. Nine goals and 11 assists in 38 league appearances underline a player who kept producing as the structure crumbled around him. At 29, he is in his prime, tied to a long contract with four years left, but facing a season in the second tier if he stays.
That combination – proven output, relegated club, long deal – usually means one thing: opportunity.
Liverpool, hunting a new right-sided forward with Salah leaving on a free, have been pushed towards Bowen by one of their own.
‘No risk’ – Murphy makes the case
Speaking on talkSPORT’s Kick Off, former Liverpool midfielder Murphy made it clear he would welcome Bowen at Anfield.
“I wouldn’t be disappointed seeing him at Liverpool,” he said, stressing Bowen’s blend of end product and reliability. Goals. Assists. Durability. In Murphy’s eyes, the West Ham captain ticks enough of the boxes that matter on the pitch.
He also acknowledged the obvious tension: Bowen does not fit Liverpool’s usual recruitment template. At 29, he offers little resale value. He is not a classic “project” signing. That has been the club’s model in recent years.
So Murphy framed it differently – not as a data play, but as value and certainty.
You want a top-level right winger? You pay. “You’re going to have to pay £50m to £80m, aren’t you,” he argued, if you shop in the usual elite bracket. Drop into the Championship, though, and the equation shifts. With West Ham down and Bowen likely keen to avoid second-tier football, Murphy suggested a deal in the region of £20m to £30m, and floated £20m as a scenario if the club are desperate to trim the wage bill.
At that price, he called it “no risk”.
Tried and tested every year in the Premier League. A known quantity. Not Salah, but not a gamble.
The shadow of Salah – but no No.11 pressure
Replacing Salah is more than replacing goals. It is stepping into a shirt that has come to define Liverpool’s modern era. On that front, Murphy urged caution.
Asked whether Bowen should inherit the No.11, he pushed back. He would not pile that symbolism on the new man. If Bowen wanted it, fine. But Liverpool, he implied, do not need to manufacture extra weight on whoever follows Salah on the right.
Murphy also stressed that backing Bowen does not mean lowering ambition. He name-checked Kvicha Kvaratskhelia as the type of global star Liverpool should still chase if the opportunity arises, describing the Georgian as having “no one better” in his role.
The point was not that Bowen is the dream marquee signing. It was that, in a summer when Liverpool have “so much business to be done” across the squad, a relatively cheap, proven Premier League winger could quietly solve one major headache.
No one is expecting Salah’s numbers. “They’re just ridiculous,” Murphy admitted. But Liverpool, he argued, could bank on Bowen’s consistency while spreading the goals around a new-look attack.
Slot’s rebuild and a crowded winger market
Arne Slot walks into a club that finished fifth and expects more. Salah’s exit only sharpens the need for clarity in the forward line.
Liverpool are understood to be weighing up whether to sign two wide players or one specialist winger plus a more versatile attacker. The market they are operating in is expensive and fiercely competitive.
Ivorian international Yan Diomande, currently at RB Leipzig, has emerged as a leading target. His profile – dynamic, direct, high ceiling – fits the club’s usual model. The price does not. Leipzig value him at around £86m, and they are not alone in the race. Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United are also circling.
Bradley Barcola and Anthony Gordon are on the radar too, both younger options with different tactical profiles and, again, serious price tags attached.
Set against that landscape, Murphy’s Bowen argument sharpens. While Liverpool weigh up £80m-plus swings on emerging stars, a 29-year-old England international with double figures in combined goals and assists, and experience carrying a team, might be available for a fraction of the fee.
The question for Liverpool’s new regime is simple: in a summer that will reshape the squad and the attack, do they chase the next superstar, or bank on a “no-risk” Premier League constant to steady the right flank as the post-Salah era begins?
