No Isak, No Salah, Now What?

Alexander Isak has underwhelmed while Mohamed Salah has fallen out of favour. But how will Liverpool create chances without them?

Alexander Isak’s goal at Tottenham was a perfect metaphor for Liverpool in 2025/26, with positive and negative entwined to a ridiculous level. He gave the Reds the lead, just as he had at West Ham, only to suffer a long-term injury in the process.

To rub further salt in his surgery scars, he had combined with Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz to fashion the goal. The latter collected his first Premier League assist, which was at least another glimmer of positivity in the gloom.

It was the first time the summer signing trio had all been involved in a sequence leading to a goal at any point, never mind making the final three contributions. The second instance will not occur for quite some time now.

With attacking relationships needing to be established, losing Isak for a few months is not ideal. There remains the question of whether Mohamed Salah can be successfully reintegrated into the starting XI too. He’ll have to be to some extent after Egypt’s Cup of Nations campaign is over, but his form was such that he was deservedly benched.

As much as Isak’s absence is a negative, at least he hadn’t contributed too much to this point so won’t be missed in that sense. Imagine if Manchester City lost Erling Haaland; this injury is not as crucial as that one would be to the respective teams.

As we approach the end of Side A of Arne Slot’s difficult second album, it’s worth reflecting on which attacking combinations have been working in the Premier League. Which duo has created the most chances or generated the most expected goals? It’s a different answer to each part of that, so you’d better read on.

Chances Created

Liverpool have had 259 shots so far this season, with 204 of them directly fashioned by one of 108 different combinations of players creating and taking the chance.

Two of the most common pairings occurred last season too. Cody Gakpo has set up seven opportunities for Salah, with the Egyptian producing the same total for Dominik Szoboszlai.

The combination of the latter topped this chart in 2024/25. After 17 match weeks this season, we have a new leading pair.

Not in total, though. The Salah-Szoboszlai axis retains top spot in that sense, thanks to being the only combination with at least four chances created in both directions. The leading standalone pair runs from Wirtz to Ekitike.

If you read the recent article on cutbacks in the penalty area, you will recall that this duo linked up against Leeds in this manner. They actually combined twice in the space of around six seconds at Elland Road. As you can see in the above chart, some of the more potent pairings haven’t yet topped that all season.

Wirtz also set Ekitike up for two chances against Brighton, meaning four had occurred in less than one full league match-worth of shared pitch time. The first was again a cutback of sorts.

The second chance against the Seagulls could’ve been an Ektike to Wirtz opening. Their slightly untuned wavelength at the start of this clip should become less of an issue with time.

While the above example didn’t count as an Opta-defined fast break, the three such chances Wirtz has created for Ekitike makes them the joint-top duo on this front too. The only one in the league occurred against Manchester United.

The other chance of note was the only Premier League opportunity Ekitike had from a corner prior to scoring against Brighton. With delivery like this, it’s surprising Wirtz is third in the pecking order for taking corners, at least based on totals so far this season. Watch this space for an investigation of this in a future article.

As Wirtz has teed Ekitike up for some low-value chances while receiving little more than nothing in the opposite direction, this twosome is not among Liverpool’s best for generating xG in 2025/26. Let’s see who is.

Expected Goals Created

The most effective combination will not be seen on the pitch until well into 2026. The leading link-up in one direction should be back in action soon though.

As Gakpo has created four Opta-defined big chances for Ekitike (in all competitions), the most of any pairing, it is right that they are top here. The Dutchman leads the team for that metric too, laying waste to the idea that he hasn’t been contributing enough.

You can see in the chart that Gakpo has been involved in the top three pairings and four of the top six. If he is under-delivering, it doesn’t say much for anyone else.

Like Wirtz, Gakpo has created a couple of long-range, low probability chances for Ekitike by virtue of the forward’s ability to dribble towards goal from distance before letting fly. Unlike with Wirtz, this pairing has delivered a league goal.

Notice how Ekitike carried possession to get the ball to Gakpo for his initial shot. He did a clever pass at Chelsea which enabled the #18 to dribble up field before returning the ball for a goal attempt. This move could easily have delivered a late winner for Liverpool in a game they ultimately lost.

The expected goals produced by the above chances is still relatively low. Three-quarters of the Gakpo-Ekitike xG output has been thanks to a pair of openings that are broadly reminiscent of the 2024/25 Reds. There was a pretty good opportunity at Brentford:

Which followed an even better one against Bournemouth in the season opener:

These are both among the 22 highest value open play chances that Liverpool have failed to convert in 2025/26, with the latter ranked joint-third. They are also similar to the ‘diagonal to the back post’ tactic that worked so well for Gakpo and Salah last season.

The more cautious football Slot is now deploying may make this brand of chance harder to create regularly, we shall have to see. But once Gakpo rejoins a team shorn of Isak and Salah, it would behove him to see if he can pick out Ekitike towards the back post.

Enjoy the holiday season, everyone. There’ll be a chat thread for Wolves on Saturday with (probably) a ‘The Match, The Stat’ afterwards. The next subscriber article will likely appear in the middle of next week. Have a good one, friends!