Should Liverpool drop Isak, Salah -- or both -- to let Ekitike shine?

Arne Slot is facing his biggest determination arsenic Liverpool caput coach. He indispensable either driblet his team's astir high-profile player, Mohamed Salah, oregon Alexander Isak, the club-record £125 cardinal summertime signing who lone arrived astatine Anfield past month.

Salah and Isak are 2 of the astir respected forwards successful satellite football, with their reputations built by years of consistency, but close present they don't merit to beryllium successful the Liverpool team.

Their deficiency of signifier is chiefly down to themselves, but the summertime squad upheaval astatine Anfield that saw 7 first-team players get for astir £450 cardinal and 7 permission (including Darwin Núñez and Luis Díaz), positive the tragic nonaccomplishment of Diogo Jota, who was killed successful a roadworthy mishap successful July, has besides disrupted things to the constituent that it is affecting each areas of the team.

As such, Slot has different important issues to address, including however to get the champion retired of attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz, who has registered nary goals and nary assists successful 8 appearances truthful acold for Liverpool since his £100 cardinal transportation from Bayer Leverkusen this summer.

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Left backmost is besides proving to beryllium a occupation presumption for Slot, with £40 cardinal signing Milos Kerkez struggling to warrant his billing arsenic Andy Robertson's semipermanent successor. While the shaky performances of halfway backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté during Sunday's 2-1 decision astatine location to Manchester United highlighted conscionable wherefore Liverpool should person moved much rapidly to motion Crystal Palace's Marc Guéhi earlier seeing a precocious £35 cardinal swoop illness connected transportation deadline day.

But portion truthful galore problems are opening to equine for Slot, the biggest 1 centers connected Salah and Isak. When 2 seemingly-undroppable players neglect to merit their spot successful the team, their ongoing beingness successful it hints astatine a manager who conscionable can't bring himself to marque a telephone that would reverberate beyond the Liverpool dressing room.

Wednesday's Champions League travel to Germany to look Eintracht Frankfurt offers Slot a brushed landing. He could instrumentality Salah and Isak retired of the broadside and constituent to a request for rotation, arsenic the world is that the format of the league signifier of the contention means that Liv...