Mohamed Salah will leave at the end of the 2025-26 season, so Liverpool no longer have the option of treating succession planning as a problem for another day.
The sharper point is that the club’s biggest attacking decisions already hinted at the answer, because the arrivals of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak look less like isolated deals and more like the framework for the side that follows him.
The Daily Mail now report that the Merseyside outfit see both players as ‘the future’ of the club.
Is Mohamed Salah Liverpool’s greatest EVER player?
Nine years of sheer brilliance are coming to an end…
Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak are Liverpool’s future
Now that Salah’s departure has been confirmed, every major decision in attack has to be viewed through a different lens. They are no longer just expensive additions to support an established superstar, but moves that now look like the first clear steps into a post-Salah era.
That is why the idea of Liverpool seeing two players as the future carries real weight. It fits the scale of the club’s transfer activity and it fits the timing, because the Reds have acted before the gap became desperate.
Wirtz arrived on a long-term contract in June 2025, and was not brought in for caution or cover. Players of that quality and profile are signed to change the level of a team, not simply to add depth.
Salah’s departure leaves more than goals behind. It leaves authority, rhythm and attacking certainty, which means the Premier League champions need players who can impose themselves rather than wait for the game to come to them.
The same logic applies even more forcefully to Isak. Liverpool did not pay a British record fee for a player they saw as a useful option in the rotation.
The Swede signed a long-term deal, and that only reinforces the point that the Reds were investing in status as much as talent. Fees of that size create expectation, and expectation at Anfield always comes attached to responsibility in the final third.
He may not carry Salah’s role in the same tactical shape, but that is not the real issue. What matters is that FSG have committed elite money to an attacker they expect to lead decisive moments, because that is what the club will need once Salah is gone.
Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox
