Liverpool Faces Summer of Change as Salah and Key Players Depart

Anfield is bracing for a summer of goodbyes and hard decisions. The banners and songs will stay the same, but the faces beneath them are about to change.

Arne Slot, or whoever ultimately takes on the job of reshaping this Liverpool side, walks into a dressing room that is losing some of its most decorated voices. Andy Robertson, the relentless left-back who helped drive a title-winning era, has said his emotional farewell. Mohamed Salah, the “Egyptian King” and the club’s modern-day goal machine, is preparing to step away from Merseyside and chase new challenges.

That alone would be seismic. Salah leaves behind 257 goals and a legacy carved into Anfield folklore. Replacing that output, that aura, is not a normal recruitment task. It is a rebuild inside a rebuild.

And the exits may not stop there. Ibrahima Konate is moving towards free agency. In midfield, Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Alexis Mac Allister have all been dragged into the swirl of exit speculation. Even Alisson, one of the most transformative goalkeepers in the club’s history, has been mentioned in the same breath as a possible departure.

Whoever steps into the manager’s office will not just be tweaking a winning formula. They will be stitching together a new one.

Big names out, big questions in

The obvious question hangs over Salah’s position on the right. Liverpool cannot simply erase a four-time Golden Boot winner from the team sheet and carry on as if nothing has changed. They need a plan.

Do they go straight for a marquee replacement? Or do they bridge the gap, accept a short-term solution, and wait for the right superstar to become available?

Names such as Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise and Paris Saint-Germain’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have already entered the conversation for future windows. The temptation is clear. But so is the financial reality.

John Arne Riise, speaking exclusively to GOAL in association with ToonieBet, pointed to the spending that has already gone into this squad and the uncertainty over how much more Liverpool can commit.

“They went big last season, didn't they? Spent so much money. How much more money do they have to spend big?”

he said, before stressing that last summer’s signings should improve as they settle and develop “step by step”.

There is no guarantee of another lavish outlay. That places even more pressure on recruitment to be precise, on every signing to fit both the system and the dressing room.

Riise admitted the calibre of targets being linked would be “unbelievable” for Liverpool, but questioned whether the club will – or can – spend at that level again. The next moves have to be smart, not just spectacular.

A squad that lost its edge

The need for change is not just about contracts and ages. It is about standards.

Riise did not hide from that. He talked about players being “way off form” this season, about a group that looked too secure in their positions and not hungry enough to fight for them.

When that happens at a club like Liverpool, the performances always tell the truth. They dipped. The intensity slipped. The crowd saw it, and so did the former left-back.

“Everybody blames the manager,” he said, but added that players know when they have fallen short. Some, he believes, “need to step up for next season”.

That is the challenge for Slot or any new man: to jolt a complacent core back to life while ushering in a new generation. It is a delicate balance. Move too slowly and the team stagnates. Move too ruthlessly and the identity fractures.

The kid who can’t be Salah

In the middle of all this upheaval, one teenager has offered a glimpse of the future.

Rio Ngumoha, still only 17, finished the 2025-26 campaign as one of the few Liverpool players with his reputation enhanced. Two senior goals at that age, in that environment, do not go unnoticed. Naturally, some have already wondered whether he could help soften the blow of Salah’s departure.

Riise likes the talent. He likes the timing. But he does not buy into the idea that Ngumoha can simply be dropped into Salah’s role and told to carry the right flank.

“I think he needs to stay at Liverpool and he needs to get a great pre-season for next season,”

Riise said. He expects more starts, more minutes, more responsibility. Just not all at once.

At 17, the body is still developing. The rhythm of playing every week in the Premier League is unforgiving, and Riise warned that performances will naturally fluctuate. That is normal, not a flaw.

For him, Ngumoha should not yet be considered a nailed-on starter. He should be nurtured, exposed to more football, given longer spells on the pitch to build fitness and confidence. But he cannot be the one asked to “replace Mo Salah as a starter”.

Liverpool, in Riise’s view, must still go out and find someone else to take on that burden. Someone ready now to shoulder the goals, the responsibility, the pressure that Salah has carried for years.

Ngumoha can grow in that shadow. He should not be forced to stand in it alone.

A summer that will define the next era

So Liverpool head into a pivotal summer with a departing icon, a manager with big ideas, a budget that may not stretch to every dream signing, and a squad that needs both a shake and a lift.

The banners will still rise on the Kop. The songs will still roll around Anfield. But when the new season starts, who will be walking out beneath them on that right-hand side – a new star, a stop-gap, or the first draft of a very different Liverpool?