Liverpool's Salah Succession Plan: Maghnes Akliouche on the Radar
Liverpool’s post-Mohamed Salah era is no longer an abstract problem for the future. It is here, looming over every team meeting, every scouting trip, every quiet conversation in the corridors of the AXA Training Centre.
And now a new name has moved towards the top of the shortlist: Maghnes Akliouche.
A right-sided answer from Monaco
According to reports in France, Liverpool are tracking the AS Monaco forward as they accelerate plans to reshape an attack that has lost its edge and will soon lose its talisman. At 24, Akliouche fits the profile the club has so often chased: young, productive, and still with room to grow.
He plays mostly off the right, cutting in from that flank, but can also slot into central roles. This season he has delivered seven goals and 11 assists in 41 appearances across all competitions – not the numbers of a volume shooter, but the output of a player increasingly involved in the final third.
He was on the Premier League radar last summer too. Tottenham pushed, but Akliouche turned down North London and chose a different path. No move materialised in the end. A €70 million valuation cooled interest and kept him in Ligue 1 for another year.
That price tag now looks more flexible.
Liverpool, PSG and a shifting market
This summer, Monaco are expected to listen more carefully. PSG have joined Liverpool in monitoring the France international, and the report suggests the Reds could test Monaco’s resolve with a bid in the region of €50 million.
For a club that has long prided itself on smart recruitment, that figure would not be insignificant. It would be a statement that Liverpool are prepared to invest heavily in a new right-sided threat rather than simply patch over Salah’s departure with internal solutions.
Yet this is not a straightforward one-in, one-out situation. Arne Slot’s attacking options are both plentiful and problematic.
Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak have been battling fitness issues. Cody Gakpo has drifted through a campaign in which his form has never truly caught fire. Recent matches have laid bare the problem: Liverpool have bodies in the forward line, but too few players who can bend a game to their will in the final third.
That is the void Salah leaves behind.
Slot’s blueprint: not just a like-for-like
Slot has already hinted that replacing Salah is not simply a case of finding another left-footed scorer to hug the right touchline and cut inside.
“[Getting the most from Isak] is definitely part of thinking about the [Salah] replacement,” he said earlier this month, outlining a broader tactical picture rather than a straight positional swap.
He pointed to a trend across modern football: left footers on the right, right footers on the left. Then he referenced one of Liverpool’s most familiar weapons – Trent Alexander-Arnold’s delivery from the right – and the goals that Alexander Isak has scored from those kinds of crosses.
That tells you where his mind is. He is not hunting the “best player in the world in that position,” as he put it. He is looking for the best player Liverpool can realistically sign, one who fits the collective rather than dominates it.
That nuance matters in the Akliouche discussion. The Monaco man is another left-footer operating from the right. On paper, he mirrors the classic Salah profile more than he breaks it. If Slot wants to rebalance the front line, that might count against him.
But plans evolve quickly when a club senses value, or when the right talent comes onto the market at the right time.
Competition, calculation and the Salah question
Akliouche is not the only name on Liverpool’s radar. Bradley Barcola and Yan Diomande have also been heavily linked with a move to Anfield, as supporters and analysts alike debate what a Salah-less Liverpool should look like.
Is it another wide forward who cuts inside and scores 20 a season? Or is it a more fluid, interchangeable front line, built around the best use of Isak, a fitter Ekitike, and a more confident Gakpo?
Those are the calculations Liverpool’s recruitment team are wrestling with as the window approaches.
What is clear is that Salah’s impending exit has forced the club into a defining moment. They cannot afford to get this wrong. They cannot simply chase a name, or a reputation, or the illusion of a like-for-like successor.
Akliouche offers creativity, versatility and a profile that will appeal to the data-led minds at Anfield. PSG’s interest raises the stakes. Monaco’s shifting stance on his valuation opens a door.
The question now is whether Liverpool step through it – and whether the man from Monaco becomes the first major signing of a new attacking era on Merseyside.
