Liverpool will miss Mohamed Salah at the start of 2024. It is a problem Jürgen Klopp has faced before and he is even more prepared this time around.
With next season’s Premier League schedule released on Thursday, it won’t be long before Liverpool can start planning travel, figuring out where the toughest games are and writing important dates into the calendars of everyone involved.
The Reds begin the season away from home after an application to the Premier League was granted, with Liverpool needing slightly more time to complete the refurbishment of Anfield Road End. Like when the main stand was built, the extra time means Liverpool can get everything in order before capacity increases to around 61,000. This is truly the first “normal” season in ages. Last year saw a mid-season World Cup, with the tournament in Qatar disrupting domestic campaigns across Europe thanks to unprecedented timing.
Before that, there was the pandemic which brought significant delays and disruptions, with the European Championships being delayed for a year meaning the tournament was played when restrictions were lifted. The last time the season started and ended at a “normal” time, without a summer tournament getting in the way of preparation, was in 2018/19.
There are some international matches coming up with Andy Robertson and Virgil van Dijk among the Liverpool players who will be involved, but it’s as close to summer as possible, for the first time in a long time. The only disruption Liverpool will face is another mid-season Africa Cup of Nations, scheduled for early 2024, just two years after the last tournament, which saw Mohamed Salah’s Egypt defeated by Sadio Mane and Senegal in the final.
On that occasion, Salah missed five Liverpool games while away from the Championship and this time it could be something close, although an FA Cup first round could also be included. Last time out he missed the semi-final double tie of the Carabao Cup with Arsenal and just two league games, against Crystal Palace and Brentford.
This year, with no World Cup in the way, the Premier League will return to a mid-season break for two weekends in mid-January. The game release on Thursday will reveal whether or not Liverpool have been lucky with how many times Salah misses in line with the scheduled half-time break and which matches he may miss. When Salah was absent last time, Mané and Naby Keïta were of course also absent. In these matches, Liverpool won against Crystal Palace and Brentford and reached the Carabao Cup final.
Only Salah will join the competition this time around because Mané and Keïta are no longer with the club and the Egyptian striker should be better replaced than last time when the results haven’t really suffered from his absence.
Last time it was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who performed in his absence. Luis Díaz arrived while Salah and Mané were out but after those five games, and Darwin Núñez and Cody Gakpo joined the next two transfer windows respectively.
With more attacking depth this time around – unless Díaz and Diogo Jota are unlucky enough to suffer injury problems again – Liverpool should be better prepared for Salah’s absence with four experienced strikers available to the team. sides of the Reds’ main man. It’s not ideal for the 30-year-old to have even more minutes under his belt with enormous pressure on Salah’s shoulders to perform, but Jürgen Klopp should at least have good cover to manage his temporary departure.
