While Mohamed Salah didn’t leave the club on a permanent basis following concrete interest from the Saudi Pro League this summer, Jürgen Klopp will be without his star man for a prolonged amount of time in 2024.
Qualification for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations is now complete, with Cameroon and Namibia being the final teams to book their tickets to the Ivory Coast, joining the 22 other teams that have already qualified.
While Salah lost his last outing against Tunisia, that was a friendly. Egypt’s place at the competition was secured prior to the latest international break.
The tournament will get underway on January 13, in the middle of the current Premier League campaign. That means the majority of teams across the top flight of English football will be without certain players until February 11, when the final is scheduled to take place.
Liverpool is losing a key man in Salah, but unlike in previous years, he will be the only one to depart for AFCON. Nottingham Forest and Manchester United are among the clubs likely to lose significant numbers of players to the tournament. Newcastle United and Manchester City will come out unscathed by not losing any players to selection.
While squads are not confirmed yet, Manchester United can expect to lose André Onana, who made a return to the Cameroon squad having originally been exiled by the manager over a disagreement. As the starting goalkeeper at Old Trafford, that will be a big blow.
Amad Diallo (Ivory Coast), Sofyan Amrabat (Morocco) and Hannibal Mejbri (Tunisia) complete the list of potential Manchester United absentees. The latter made headlines last night by striking Salah’s ‘meditation’ pose with team-mates as his side beat Egypt 3-1.
As for Nottingham Forest, it’s a string of seven potential absentees, with former Liverpool striker Taiwo Awoniyi among the stand-outs. He’s currently on the second-longest active run of Premier League goal involvements, behind only Salah.
Ola Aina is another who could be called up by Nigeria. The rest of the eligible players are as follows: Serge Aurier, Willy Boly and Ibrahim Sangaré (Ivory Coast), Moussa Niakhaté and Cheikhou Kouyaté.
In terms of potential direct Liverpool rivals, Arsenal could lose a couple of players. Thomas Partey is the stand-out, with Mohamed Elneny likely to join up with Salah on Egypt duty.
Liverpool will face Bournemouth (A), Chelsea (H), Arsenal (A) and Burnley (H) during the time that Salah could be away with Egypt.
