Liverpool Faces Rebuild: Summer Goodbyes and New Challenges

Anfield faces a summer of goodbyes and hard questions. The kind that define a new era before a ball is even kicked.

Arne Slot steps into a dressing room about to be stripped of some of its most decorated figures. Andy Robertson, a serial winner at full-back, has said his emotional farewell. Mohamed Salah, the “Egyptian King” and scorer of 257 goals for the club, is preparing to walk away from Merseyside and test himself elsewhere. Ibrahima Konate is running down his deal towards free agency. Even the core of the midfield – Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones, Alexis Mac Allister – has been dragged into exit talk, along with Alisson, the Brazilian cornerstone in goal.

This is not a tweak. It is a rebuild.

The largest hole, of course, will appear on the right flank. Salah’s departure rips out a guarantee of goals, a four-time Premier League Golden Boot winner who has defined Liverpool’s attack for years. Names have already started circling – Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise, Paris Saint-Germain’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia among them – but the key question hangs in the air: do Liverpool go big now on a ready-made star, or play the long game and bridge the gap with a stop-gap solution?

John Arne Riise, speaking exclusively to GOAL in association with ToonieBet, can see the scale of the task facing Slot and the recruitment team.

“If you look at Arne Slot's interviews a few times now, he speaks about there's some changes to be done with the football club for next season,” Riise said. “I think some players will go and I think they're going to get some players.”

Liverpool already spent heavily last season to retool the squad. That spree raises another issue: how much is left in the tank financially for another big push?

“They went big last season, didn't they? Spent so much money. How much more money do they have to spend big?” Riise asked. “But then again, I think the signings from last season will be better for next year as well to go step by step.”

The idea is clear: evolution rather than chaos. Yet the names linked – players of Olise and Kvaratskhelia’s calibre – would transform any frontline.

“But those players you mentioned, it would have been unbelievable to sign for Liverpool,” Riise admitted. “But I don't know how much money they have to spend or if they even will spend big trying to find players who really suit the system they need.”

This is where Slot’s vision collides with reality. Liverpool need freshness, energy, and hunger. They also need to correct what Riise sees as a deeper problem: standards slipping.

“I'm going to be excited to watch this summer because there's changes to be done, needing to be done,” he said. “Because there's some players this season that have been way off form and I think it's when you're too confident in your position. I don't think they put the work in that they should have, some of the players. And you can see the performance hasn't been up to the standard either.”

The easy reaction is to point at the manager. Riise refuses to let the players off so lightly.

“But then again, everybody blames the manager,” he continued, “but us players, we know ourselves when we haven't been good enough and there's some players who need to step up for next season.”

Amid the uncertainty, one bright spark has cut through the gloom. Rio Ngumoha, the teenage winger, has emerged as one of the few Liverpool players to finish the 2025-26 campaign with his stock significantly higher. At just 17, he already has two senior goals to his name and has been thrust into the conversation as a potential part of the solution to life after Salah.

Is he ready to carry that kind of weight? Not yet, says Riise – but he must stay close.

“I think he needs to stay at Liverpool and he needs to get a great pre-season for next season,” the 2005 Champions League winner insisted.

Riise sees more minutes coming, more responsibility, more exposure to the grind of top-level football. Just not the burden of being the main man.

“He will get more starting time next season but he's only 17 and his body won't handle playing week in, week out,” Riise explained. “Plus, he will go up and down in performances because he's young. It's just normal.”

That is the reality of blooding a prodigy. There will be flashes of brilliance, followed by dips, all under the unforgiving glare of Anfield.

“So for me, he's not a starting XI regular yet because he needs time,” Riise said. “But he will start a lot more games next season. He will play longer games as well to get his fitness up but he won't be able to replace Mo Salah as a starter. We need someone else to come in and fill that role and do the job that Mo Salah has done.”

Liverpool, then, stand on a knife-edge summer. A legendary goalscorer is leaving, senior figures are moving on, and a new manager is charged with reshaping both the squad and the culture. Somewhere between the chequebook and the academy, between a marquee signing and a maturing teenager, lies the answer to the question that will define Slot’s first season: who dares to take Salah’s place on the right of that famous front line?