Liverpool's Ideal Mohamed Salah Successor: Jarrod Bowen

The Premier League era at Anfield is about to lose one of its defining figures. Mohamed Salah is leaving on a free transfer this summer, taking 257 Liverpool goals and nine years of relentless output with him. The hole on that right flank is enormous.

One former Liverpool midfielder believes the answer is hiding in plain sight – and now playing in the Championship.

Bowen after the fall

West Ham United’s 14-year stay in the top flight ended with a thud. Relegation has turned the Hammers’ best players into targets, and none more so than their captain, Jarrod Bowen.

Bowen’s numbers in a doomed season were anything but relegation form: nine goals and 11 assists in 38 league games. He ran, he pressed, he produced. It still wasn’t enough to keep West Ham up.

At 29, with four years left on his contract, he should be entering his prime. Instead, he faces the prospect of Championship football unless a Premier League club moves. Liverpool, with Salah walking away, sit squarely in the frame.

Murphy’s verdict: ‘no risk’ business

Speaking on talkSPORT’s Kick Off, Danny Murphy made the case without hesitation when asked by Natalie Sawyer whether Bowen would make sense at Anfield.

“I wouldn’t be disappointed seeing him at Liverpool,” the former Reds midfielder said. “He’s got goals in him. He’s got assists in him, he’s durable. I think he’s good enough.”

Murphy did not ignore the obvious clash with Liverpool’s usual recruitment model. The club typically invests in players with resale value, upside and time to grow. Bowen, nearing 30 and under a long contract, does not tick those boxes.

“There’s a criteria generally that Liverpool stick to… and he doesn’t really fit in that in terms of age, potential profit and all those types of things,” Murphy admitted. This, he argued, is where context matters. Liverpool need guaranteed output now.

The financial angle is where Murphy believes the deal becomes compelling. Elite right-sided forwards do not come cheap.

“You’re going to have to pay for a top quality player on that right hand side. You’re going to have to pay £50m to £80m, aren’t you,” he said.

West Ham’s relegation changes the equation. Murphy suggested that dropping into the Championship could knock Bowen’s price into a completely different bracket.

“With him going down to the Championship, I reckon you’d be looking at maybe £20m, £30m at most,” he argued. Then he pushed it further: “Let’s say it was £20m because he’s desperate to get out and then get him off the wage bill, then it’s no risk.”

A proven Premier League wide forward, in his prime years, for a fee that low? In Murphy’s eyes, that is the kind of short-term, low-risk deal that frees Liverpool to spend heavily elsewhere.

The Salah shadow

Any right-sided forward walking into Anfield now does so under Salah’s towering shadow. The Egyptian has rewritten the numbers for a wide attacker in English football.

Salah’s 193 Premier League goals make him the fourth-highest scorer in the competition’s history. He has four Golden Boots. His 257 goals in 442 Liverpool appearances have fuelled a Champions League win, a long-awaited league title and a stack of near-misses.

So should Bowen be handed Salah’s iconic No.11 shirt if he arrives?

“I wouldn’t put that on him,” Murphy said. “If he wanted it, I’d give it to him, but I wouldn’t be too concerned about that.”

He was keen to draw a line between realism and fantasy. Bowen, he stressed, is not a like-for-like Salah clone, nor should he be expected to be.

“He’s not going to get Salah’s numbers, they’re just ridiculous, but tried and tested every year in the Premier League,” Murphy said. Reliability, not superstardom, is the sell.

Stars, budgets and priorities

Murphy did not present Bowen as the only answer. He made it clear that if Liverpool can land a global star, they should.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting Liverpool shouldn’t be going for top stars,” he said, before namechecking Kvicha Kvaratskhelia as the dream scenario.

“If you can persuade Kvaratskhelia to come out of PSG because he’s won everything there and I know he’s got a liking for Liverpool, as he said in one of his interviews, but go for him by all means, because there’s no one better.”

That is the ideal. Reality, though, is shaped by budget and a squad with several fault lines to address. Murphy’s point was simple: a cut-price, proven Bowen on the right would allow Liverpool to pour serious money into other areas.

“Liverpool have got so many other areas of the pitch to concentrate on, so much business to be done, that would kind of be like that sorted,” he said.

One position, one headache, removed in a single move.

Slot’s first big call

Arne Slot arrives at Anfield facing a complicated summer. Liverpool finished fifth last season and want a squad capable of challenging again immediately. That means a busy window, and big decisions in attack.

With Salah leaving, the plan is clear: either two wingers, or one specialist wide forward and a more versatile attacker who can move across the front line.

Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig has emerged as the leading target. The Ivorian winger is seen internally as a strong stylistic fit to replace Salah’s threat from the right, but the price is eye-watering. The German club value him at £86m, and he has admirers at Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United as well.

Bradley Barcola and Anthony Gordon are also on Liverpool’s radar, both younger, high-ceiling options who would command significant fees and wages.

Those names sit at the expensive, high-upside end of the market. Bowen represents the opposite: older, cheaper, known quantity. The question for Slot and Liverpool’s hierarchy is which route best balances risk, reward and the urgent need to stay in the title conversation.

Do they gamble big on the next superstar, or bank on a cut-price Premier League stalwart to steady the right flank while the rest of the rebuild takes shape?