Former Liverpool star Emile Heskey wants Arne Slot to drop Mohamed Salah in favour of summer signing Hugo Ekitike.

Liverpool haven’t been in the best of form of late as they have lost four games in a row. On the back of three straight defeats in the league, they have slipped down to 3rd and are now four points behind Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.

The pressure is certainly mounting on Arne Slot, and he would certainly be keen on turning things around in the coming weeks. The Dutch manager might look to make some significant changes to help his team get back on track. Emile Heskey feels Slot should take the bold call of dropping Mohamed Salah.

Heskey’s take on what Slot must do

In an exclusive interview with TEAMtalk, the former Liverpool star has urged the Dutch manager to bench the Egyptian international and start summer signing Hugo Ekitike alongside Alexander Isak in the final third.

Heskey said, “Mo Salah’s not doing great,”

”So, is he the one who could be sacrificed? Because when you’re playing Mo, he likes to play high and wide, but if you’re playing two up front, that one can’t stay out there, so he needs to really tuck in.

“Mo can’t tuck in. So I think he might be the one [Slot drops] if you’re going to play the two up front, and I think it’ll be interesting to look at the two up front, because I think it looked good.

“I think we we haven’t seen partnerships for a long time, since probably 2010s, probably 10 or 15 years ago, with proper strikers playing together.

“I think that would look really, really good for Liverpool and interesting.

“It would pose a different solution and a different challenge for opposition defenders, because they’re so used to not marking two strikers now and only having one to deal them.

“If they have two forwards against them, the runs that they make are going to be interesting, because then the defenders will actually have to defend properly.”

Salah has been one of the mainstays at Liverpool since joining them from AS Roma back in 2017. He will probably go down as one of their greatest ever, given what he has done for the club. However, his recent form hasn’t been that great.

Why drop Salah?

The Egyptian forward only has two goals in his eight league outings, which is significantly lower than his usual returns. While dropping him won’t be that easy a call to make, that might actually make sense if Slot decides to go ahead with two strikers in the final third.

Isak and Ekitike could form a deadly partnership in attack, but playing them together means Slot will have to sacrifice Salah, as the 33-year-old doesn’t have great off-the-ball work rate. More importantly, he loves to stay higher up the field in wide positions. Since he can’t tuck in and put a decent defensive shift, he can’t co-exist with two number nines.

While playing two strikers will certainly give Liverpool’s attack a completely different look, dropping Salah won’t be that straightforward. With Slot already under pressure, things could get out of his hands if he drops their star forward and fails to deliver the desired result.