Liverpool will be without Mohamed Salah for their early January trip to Arsenal after Egypt became the first team to qualify for the round of 16 at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n
Salah\u2019s winning goals in group wins over Zimbabwe and South Africa confirmed Egypt\u2019s progress and set up a round-of-16 tie against the third-placed team from Group A, C or D on Jan. 5. That scheduling makes it impossible for the forward to feature at the Emirates three days later for Liverpool\u2019s Premier League fixture on Jan. 8.<\/p>\n
The timing is a further blow to Arne Slot\u2019s attacking options, already restricted by Alexander Isak\u2019s latest injury setback. With Salah reintegrated and seemingly set to stay at Anfield, Liverpool will be eager to have their leading forward available as soon as international duty ends, but exact return timing remains uncertain.<\/p>\n
If Egypt are eliminated in the round of 16, Salah would most likely be available for the FA Cup third round match with Barnsley on Jan. 12, although he appears unlikely to start that fixture regardless. Should Egypt advance, their quarter-final would be staged on Jan. 10, the semi-final four days later and the final on Jan. 18, which would keep Salah unavailable to Liverpool until after the showpiece event.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s side have steadied after a difficult October and November, but they will still travel to face a high-flying Arsenal without their talisman. The absence of Salah narrows Liverpool\u2019s attacking choices at a crucial point in the calendar and raises fresh selection and tactical questions for Slot ahead of January\u2019s congested schedule.<\/p>\n
For supporters, the most favourable outcome would be an early Egypt exit that returns Salah to domestic duty sooner. Until then, Liverpool must plan for the club\u2019s important fixtures in January without one of their main attacking options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salah will miss Liverpool\u2019s trip to Arsenal after Egypt reached the 2025 AFCON round of 16 on Jan 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[1211,195,299],"class_list":["post-5423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}