Liverpool’s Salah Dilemma: Trincão or Bust?
Liverpool’s summer is already crowded with names, dossiers and scouting clips, but one question keeps cutting through the noise: who replaces Mohamed Salah?
Behind the scenes at Anfield, the rebuild is already in motion. It has to be. Without a sharp, decisive reshaping of the squad, any talk of a genuine Premier League title push this season feels fanciful. Andoni Iraola will want a full look at his group in pre-season, but the clock is ticking. By the time the final friendly is played, he must know who stays, who goes, and who walks through the door next.
Right now, one of those potential arrivals is slipping into a very tight window.
Trincão Deal on a Knife Edge
In Portugal, the Francisco Trincão saga is reaching the point where hesitation becomes surrender. According to A Bola, Al Ahli’s pursuit of the Sporting CP winger is active, serious and already advanced enough to set clear financial lines in the sand.
Sporting have fixed their valuation between €50m and €60m. They have already knocked back an initial approach that effectively put €45m on the table, even without a formal written offer. Al Ahli, whose sporting director is Rui Pedro Braz, want that price down. The two clubs are only €5m apart, but neither side is blinking yet.
Negotiations are ongoing, but the pace is described as slower than Atlético Madrid’s talks for Morten Hjulmand and “expected to be tough”. Al Ahli’s interest, though, is not in doubt, even after they spent €22m to bring in attacking midfielder Eduard Spertsyan from Krasnodar.
For Liverpool, that gap between €45m and €50m is more than just a number. It is a deadline. The report suggests they may have only until the end of the week to get involved before the Saudi club close in.
A Right Wing With No Clear Owner
This is not a luxury debate for Liverpool. It is a structural one. The right wing is a problem area.
Some supporters clung to the hope that Salah might yet perform a late U-turn and stay at Anfield. All signs point the other way. Liverpool have to plan as if their era-defining right-sided forward is gone.
On paper, the current list of right-wing options is thin. Federico Chiesa and Jeremie Frimpong are the only natural candidates in that zone, and even that picture is unstable, with Chiesa potentially heading for the exit. Victor Munoz can operate there, but his best work comes from the left, where he can drive inside and dictate.
Strip it back, and Liverpool are staring at the most important attacking role in their system with no clear heir.
That is where Trincão enters the frame.
Why Trincão Fits Iraola’s Blueprint
Iraola’s football shares broad principles with the styles of Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot: intensity, verticality, aggressive pressing. But within that, there are sharp nuances in what he demands from his forwards.
He wants strikers who can snap the last defensive line, run in behind, then drift wide to stretch the pitch. Eli Junior Kroupi offered that blend last season, constantly threatening space while never staying in one lane. Someone like Hugo Ekitike ticks those boxes. Alexander Isak, even more so.
Out wide, the demands change. Iraola’s wingers are not just finishers. They must also create, combine, and carry the ball in tight spaces. Trincão’s numbers from last season speak directly to that profile: 13 goals and 18 assists. That is not a winger who merely arrives at the back post. That is a forward who shapes games.
He is also left-footed, cutting in from the right, hitting that familiar Salah corridor between full-back and centre-half. In stylistic terms, as a replacement template, he comes close to ideal.
One Last Chance to Move
Strip away the noise of the inflated market and the Premier League arms race, and Liverpool’s situation is brutally simple.
They need a new right-sided forward. They have identified a player whose output and profile align with their new manager’s demands. That player is currently at the centre of a negotiation where the two main parties are separated by €5m.
Al Ahli are at the table. Sporting know exactly what they want. The talks are described as difficult, but they are moving. For Liverpool, this is not an open-ended saga. It is a narrowing window.
If they truly see Francisco Trincão as Salah’s successor, this is the week they find out how serious they are about reshaping their attack — and how willing they are to step into a fight that might define the front line of the next era at Anfield.
