It's a cliche to talk about "a nice problem" for a manager to have when it comes to selecting from a gifted bunch of players.
Perhaps no one has ever had a footballing problem quite as nice as Arne Slot's as the Liverpoolmanager settles into this international break.
The reigning Premier League champions have three wins out of three this season and overcame Arsenal, their nearest challengers from last season, at the weekend.
It left Liverpool as the only team with a 100% record at this early stage and they marked transfer deadline day by finally securing Alexander Isak for a British record £125 million ($169m / €144m), usurping the previous record they set by bringing in Bundesliga superstar Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen.
France Under-21 striker Hugo Ekitike is also part of the equation and will have to share minutes with Isak, although he could also start the season off the left, where Cody Gakpo has been the man in possession.
Oh, and then there's Mohamed Salah. The winner of the FWA and PFA Player of the Year awards, contender for the Ballon d'Or and, along with Kevin De Bruyne, the best Premier League player of the past decade.
Decent problems to have, but adaptations to make. That can sometimes cause... well, problems.
Mohamed Salah 2024/25 stats
By any measure, Salah's efforts last season were off the charts. Across all competitions, he scored 34 goals and laid on 23 assists. Those 57 goal contributions were 46.34% of Liverpool's 123 overall.
In the Premier League, Salah was even more integral. His 29 goals and 18 assists amounted to 47 goal contributions out of 86 from the collective (54.65%).
This was an attacking unit entirely built with Salah as the focal point. He received 602 passes over the course of the season as per FBref — a staggering increase from 399 in 2023/24.
Salah also played more minutes (4,490) than any season in his career, after making 52 appearances and 50 starts. He turned 33 in June.
The incredible output for a forward at this stage of his career naturally brings to mind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at similar points in their development.
Towards the end of his time at Real Madrid, Ronaldo became a minimalist, utterly clinical wide forward. In Messi's case, his creativity caught the eye just as much as his goals at the end of the previous decade, something that could also be said for Salah's dizzying assist numbers last term.
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How will Salah, Isak and Wirtz play together?
Another aspect that Salah has in common Messi and Ronaldo, unsurprisingly given his advancing years, is a drop off when it comes to the more unglamorous physical aspects of his game.
In 2024/25, Salah averaged 0.69 possession regains in the opponents' final third per 90 minutes. Throughout his Liverpool career, this number tended to track closer to 0.9. During two gargantuan seasons under Klopp, in 2018/19 and 2021/22, he averaged 1.16 and 1.02 respectively.
The lower return on this metric last season can partly be attributed to a change in style from Klopp to Slot, but Salah also had a supporting cast willing to run through walls for him. Luis Diaz, now at Bayern Munich, averaged 3.91 recoveries and 13.12 duels per 90 minutes. Salah was 2.7 and 8 on those metrics respectively.
Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota joined Diaz by going full throttle in the name of Salah, while Dominik Szoboszlai was superb out of possession playing in the No. 10 role for Slot's side.
That's now Wirtz's responsibility and, although the Germany international is attuned to hard-running and intelligent pressing from his time playing under Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen, his role will have to be grooved. Sometimes Isak and Ekitike will play together, but having an elite rotation option is another way to ensure the freshness and legs that Salah needs around him.
Slot's not unreasonable bet is that the sweat and toil aspects will come in due course. Given how Liverpool faded relatively towards the end of last term (not that Arsenal ever tested this to its fullest extent), it would have been unwise to bank on one player, even one as formidable as Salah, to carry so much of the load once more.
Having the collective firepower to blow teams away is something Liverpool lacked last season. They won 10 matches 2-0. The boisterous demolition of Tottenham to seal the title was an exception. Although much of the early focus this term has rightly fallen upon a flimsy and exposed defence, the Reds being able to blast their way out of trouble against Bournemouth and Newcastle United gives a hint over what Slot might be gunning for.
Across the small sample size so far, Salah has received an average of 10.3 progressive passes per game, the lowest of his Liverpool career. He was still there to seal the points against Bournemouth and tee up Rio Ngumoha to do likewise at St James' Park. Those moments should continue to come around frequently, even if this is a new reality for Mo and the Galacticos.