Mohamed Salah now looks almost guaranteed to miss one of Liverpool\u2019s most important matches of the campaign after Egypt booked their place in the AFCON knockout stages on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s game against Wolves today marks their second fixture since the 33-year-old departed Merseyside for the tournament in Morocco, with clashes against Leeds and Fulham coming up early in 2026.<\/p>\n
Salah was once again decisive for the Pharaohs on Friday, scoring the winning goal for the second time in a week as Egypt beat South Africa. He converted from the penalty spot after being caught in the face by Khuliso Mudau, sealing another vital victory.<\/p>\n
That result ensured Egypt finished top of AFCON Group B with a match still to play. As group winners, they already know they\u2019ll face a third-placed team from another section in the round of 16 on 5 January \u2014 a tie they\u2019ll be strong favourites to win \u2014 with a quarter-final likely to follow five days later.<\/p>\n
Even in the unlikely event that Egypt are knocked out in the last 16, Salah would face a tight turnaround to make it back in time for Liverpool\u2019s huge Premier League trip to Arsenal on 8 January. If Egypt progress as expected, he will definitely be unavailable for the Emirates Stadium encounter.<\/p>\n
While Salah\u2019s form has dipped compared to last season and he had recently dropped out of Arne Slot\u2019s starting lineup before AFCON, his absence against Arsenal would still be significant \u2014 especially with Alexander Isak ruled out for at least two months.<\/p>\n
Egypt were always expected to top their group and make a deep run in the competition, though securing first place early could allow Salah to be rested for Monday evening\u2019s final group game against Angola.<\/p>\n
Any realistic hopes of a swift return to Anfield have now faded, but the positive for Liverpool is that Salah is scoring in Morocco and could come back to Merseyside full of confidence, both on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mohamed Salah now looks almost guaranteed to miss one of Liverpool\u2019s most important matches of the campaign after Egypt booked their place in the AFCON knockout stages on Boxing Day. Liverpool\u2019s game against Wolves today marks their second fixture since the 33-year-old departed Merseyside for the tournament in Morocco, with clashes against Leeds and Fulham …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":57055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_0798.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57056,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57054\/revisions\/57056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}