Paul Merson says Arne Slot has a big decision to make at Liverpool now

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Arne Slot has made plenty of additions to his Liverpool squad this summer.

The Reds may have been one of the most dominant teams in the Premier League last season, but that didn’t stop the Dutchman from finding and acquiring players to improve his squad.

This season, anything but a Premier League or Champions League win will be seen as a failure, especially since they finally managed to sign Alexander Isak for £125million.

Indeed, they did end up missing out on Marc Guehi in the final hours of the window, but with Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez and Giovanni Leoni available, they should be more than fine.

That is, even though Slot may need to juggle things around to give everyone a fair amount of game time.

Paul Merson believes Arne Slot now has some “big decisions” to make after Alexander Isak’s arrival

For most of the 2025-26 summer transfer window, fans expected to see Isak in a Liverpool shirt.

However, as we got into the final few days of the window and the Sweden international still wasn’t a Liverpool player, fans began to worry.

In the end, the Reds got their man, but with the arrival of the striker, it raises the question of how Slot is going to be able to keep all of his first-team squad happy this season.

And, while live on Sky Sports, Paul Merson admitted that he thinks the Dutchman will have some “big decisions” to make this term.

“I like him [Alexander Isak]. He’s a good player, but I don’t think it’s all over just because he’s signed. I don’t see it like that. The problem is Liverpool haven’t played well, yet they’ve beaten Newcastle and Arsenal. That’s the issue: they’ve not been at their best, but they’ve still got those results,” he said.

“It all depends on whether it works. You can have the best players in the world, but if it doesn’t gel, you don’t have the chemistry. When Liverpool were at their best, it was Mane, Salah and Firmino. Firmino would drop off, Salah would make those runs in, and Mane too, there was chemistry.

“For me, Firmino wasn’t a £125m player, but he made it all tick. Unless this new set-up gels, time will tell. What Slot has now is a lot of head-scratching, because he’s got big decisions to make with very good players.”

Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak will have to battle it out at Liverpool this season

When Liverpool managed to prise Hugo Ekitike from the hands of Newcastle this summer, nobody expected him to be as good as he has been.

Granted, he did have a rather impressive season during the 2024-25 campaign, but aside from that, he’s never bagged more than 15 goals in a term.

However, ever since arriving at Anfield, he’s taken like a duck to water and has arguably been the Reds’ best signing this term.

But now that Isak has arrived, he’s guaranteed to get the number nine role, which means Ekitike will have to be used as a back-up or even out of position on the left wing.

At the moment, it’s unclear how things are going to work at Liverpool, but one thing is for sure: it’s certainly a good problem for Slot to have, especially if he wants to retain the Premier League title.