Liverpool set to sign Mo Salah 2.0

Richard Hughes will likely be signing his new Mohamed Salah for Liverpool this summer.

Let's cast our minds back to the 2013/14 season. Liverpool were flying high in the league under Brendan Rodgers but the club were looking to add an extra body in attack.

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At the time, the recruitment team identified Mohamed Salah, an Egyptian winger from FC Basel. Liverpool made an approach to sign the exciting young talent.

But in the end, it was Chelsea who won the race for his signature. Jose Mourinho lured him away from the Reds. Who knows what might have happened had it been the other way.

Had Salah been wearing the red shirt at Anfield on that infamous day that saw Steven Gerrard slip, things might have turned out differently.

But in a fortuitous way, Salah found his way back to Anfield and Liverpool three years later, and the rest is history.

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This summer, Liverpool are going to sign a player who has very much had a similar close call with the Reds this summer - only this time around it's been nine years in the making.

Why Liverpool will sign Alexander Isak

All the latest reports seem to suggest that Liverpool are frontrunners in the race to sign Alexander Isak. talkSPORT has recently reported that the Reds are willing to offer other players as part of the deal with Newcastle to land the Swedish star.

Another report from The Times has claimed that Newcastle are interested in Jarell Quansah.

Putting these two together, it very much feels like Richard Hughes is closing in on finding an agreement for Isak, something Michael Edwards could not do himself.

Back in 2016, Isak was on Liverpool's radar as per Sport. He had just emerged as an exciting teenage talent at AIK and Liverpool were looking to add more firepower to Jurgen Klopp's squad.

A move however, just like with Mohamed Salah in 2014, fell through. Isak ended up moving to Borussia Dortmund, attracted by the club's promise of developing young players.

But under Thomas Tuchel, Isak was never really given an opportunity in Dortmund, just like Salah was ignored by Mourinho at Chelsea.

This spell in Isak's career, just like the Chelsea spell with Salah, has cast doubts about his quality as a player. In reality though, the underlying numbers would suggest, Isak showed more than enough.

In total Isak was only given 236 minutes for Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga and the DFB Pokal. Yet in those minutes he averaged 0.38 goals and 0.38 assists per 90.

So, essentially, he had an output of 0.72 goal contributions per 90 - not bad for a supposedly 'failed attacker.'

In Dortmund's second team, Isak averaged 0.63 goal contributions per 90 and was involved in closed to 40% of the goals Borussia Dortmund II scored in the games that he played.

In one pre-season friendly ahead of the 2017/18 season, Isak netted four goals for Dortmund's first team in a 5-2 victory over Rot-Weiss.

So, you cannot even make the argument that he didn't show enough to warrant more chances at Dortmund.

Isak was a leading figure in the Dortmund II team and he made an impact in the first team when given his opportunity to shine in fleeting moments.

This season for context he's been involved in 51% of Newcastle United's goals in the Premier League, so even back in those days in Dortmund he wasn't far away from those numbers.

Sometimes players need opportunities and Salah is a shining beacon to highlight that.

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Just because you're not valued somewhere doesn't make you a bad player. Like Salah, Isak has proven that two-fold and he will continue to prove it at Liverpool as well.

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