Liverpool's Search for Salah's Successor: Ibrahim Mbaye
Mohamed Salah has gone, closing the book on one of the most devastating attacking careers Anfield has ever witnessed. His exit always came with a follow-up question: who on earth comes next?
With less than three weeks until the new season kicks off, Liverpool still don’t have an obvious answer on the right flank. No marquee signing. No ready-made heir. Just a gaping space where the club’s most reliable source of goals and chaos used to operate.
That vacuum has only sharpened the anxiety. Liverpool didn’t just lose Salah; they also never truly had a natural backup winger on that side. Jeremie Frimpong can play high and wide, but he’s not a winger by trade and, with Conor Bradley injured, he’s needed at right-back. The depth chart looks stretched, the options improvised.
Interest in Bradley Barcola has stirred some excitement, but he’s a left-sided forward, not the man to pin down the right. For all the noise around potential arrivals, the identity of the player who will actually start the season out there remains a mystery.
On Tuesday night, a name finally cut through the fog.
Reports emerged that Liverpool want Ibrahim Mbaye, with talks expected to begin soon. Fabrice Hawkins has outlined a genuine interest from the club, while Fabrizio Romano has indicated the 18-year-old is keen on the move. The pieces, at last, are edging into place.
This is not a like-for-like, plug-and-play solution. Mbaye is still a teenager, still learning, still raw. He would not walk into Salah’s old role and immediately reproduce a decade of output and influence. No one can.
What he does bring is something rarer: the profile of a potential world-beater. Liverpool know how thin the market is for elite right-sided forwards. The pool is shallow, the prices wild, the truly special talents almost non-existent. In that context, Mbaye stands out.
The Senegal youngster has long been viewed as the sort of player who, with the right coaching and patience, could grow into a leading light on that flank. His ceiling is high enough to tempt a club that has built its recent history on spotting the next superstar before everyone else catches up.
This is what makes the pursuit significant. It’s not just about who starts on the opening day; it’s about who carries the torch in the years to come. Liverpool are not simply hunting a short-term stopgap. They are looking for someone who can eventually shoulder the responsibility of being Salah’s true successor.
Mbaye is not there yet. But he has the tools, the talent, and the temperament to make the gamble worthwhile.
If Liverpool push ahead and get this done, they might finally have their answer on the right: not a replica of their Egyptian king, but a new project with the potential to write his own Anfield story.
