The £50m Mo Salah transfer mistake Liverpool can’t afford

Robin Bairner

• 27 Oct 2025 10:30 CDT
• 4 min read

News

Mohamed Salah has become an unexpected problem for Liverpool.

The Egypt international might have banged in a fine consolation in the closing stages of Saturday’s Premier League loss to Brentford, but he has not been close to his expected level this season.

With the prospect of Salah leaving the club next summer looming increasingly large, Liverpool are already working on a succession plan.

Manager Arne Slot is reportedly eyeing Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo, perhaps the Premier League’s most in-form player, as the heir to Salah’s Anfield throne.

Off the back of an extraordinary period of form that has seen the 25-year-old Londoner score six and lay on three more in just nine Premier League appearances so far this season, the Ghana international is unsurprisingly one of the most coveted players ahead of the January window.

Manchester United and Tottenham have already tried to sign Semenyo. During the summer, both clubs saw offers of €57m (£50m) rejected by the Cherries, according to The Telegraph.

With the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea retaining an interest, it would be a grave mistake for Liverpool to try to replace Salah with Semenyo so soon.

Semenyo: Doubts over Liverpool quality

Quality is the primary issue in any deal. While Semenyo may have caught fire in recent weeks, he has shown such streaks of form previously in the Premier League without being able to sustain them.

According to data analytics firm SciSports, Semenyo would only be the 15th strongest player in the Liverpool squad if he were to move to Anfield. This calculation is based on hundreds of in-game data points gathered over months of research.

Complicating matters further for him is the fact that he has almost maxed out his potential, according to the analytics experts, who see greater room for growth in his former Bournemouth team-mate and new Liverpool arrival Milos Kerkez, for example.

To make matters worse, Semenyo is not even seen as a good fit for Arne Slot’s playing style. On the Career Advice tool, the Ghana international is given just one star from a possible five when it comes to this metric.

In total, he earns a Club Fit score of just 63, although this is driven down by the assumption that Salah would still be there to restrict his Anfield playing time.

And Semenyo would not even provide value for money. With Bournemouth knocking back €57m (£50m), he will presumably only be sold for a significantly higher fee – particularly in January.

His Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) is just €45.3m.

Alternative options

With Semenyo and Liverpool not looking a smart fit, who are the players similar to Mo Salah who might be closer to what the Reds are hoping for.

Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh is a player worth watching. He has a sky-high potential and plenty of current ability to make him standout, while he has an ETV of €47m (£41m) – very similar to the Bournemouth star.

Looking further afield, Eintracht Frankfurt’s Ansgar Knauff scores well with the data, offering a very similar current level to Semenyo as well as a significantly higher ceiling all for an ETV of €18.9m (£16.6m).

Liverpool don’t seem to have got their transfer business bang on in the summer, and signing Semenyo to replace Salah in perhaps the Reds’ most important move in years would simply compound their errors.

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