NO Salah, no problem.
Arne Slot made some big calls and rotated, or rather dropped, nearly half his Liverpool team to avoid slumping to the club’s worst run in 72 years.
That meant Mo Salah starting on the bench for successive Champions League games for the first time since he joined Liverpool in 2017.
Yet after four straight losses and the season already threatening to turn into a nightmare, Slot got the win he badly needed.
Five goals, five different scorers.
Hugo Ekitike, the only summer signing who has settled quickly on Merseyside, returned to his former Eintracht Frankfurt club to cancel out the opener from former Leeds defender Rasmus Kristensen.
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Virgil Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate also scored for Liverpool in the first half to put the game beyond their Bundesliga hosts.
With Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai striking late on to dish out a proper hammering against the third best team in Germany last term.
Frankfurt’s defending was poor but Liverpool still looked far sharper and more organised than in Sunday’s 2-1 loss at home to Manchester United.
Alongside Ekitike — dropped for the United defeat — Jeremie Frimpong, Andy Robertson, Curtis Jones and Florian Wirtz also came into the team.
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Yet Frimpong went off in the first half with an injury then Alexander Isak made way at half-time.
Even when Slot could have unleashed Salah for the second half, he gave Federico Chiesa a runout.
Finally, in the 73rd minute with the game over, Salah replaced Ekitike — and you wonder if the Egyptian will return to the team this weekend.
You would still expect Brentford to give Liverpool a tougher test on Saturday, so it would be naive to think Slot’s problems will disappear.
The fact remains there were too many summer changes at Anfield.
Kristensen’s goal for Frankfurt was the 18th goal Liverpool had conceded in 13 games.
At the same stage last term they had leaked just seven, so it shows it is not just in attack where Slot’s team have struggled.
Frankfurt manager Dino Toppmoller stuck his top scorers Jonathan Burkardt and Can Uzun — with six apiece — on the bench.
But he would have been over the moon as his hosts took the lead against the run of play. And it was a thing of beauty.
A stunning, intricate ten-pass move which started after Wirtz lost possession in his own half.
Mario Gotze, starting his first game of the season, was also involved but Kristensen had lots of work to do.
With his sixth touch, he fired a shot through Robertson’s legs and into the net via the far post.
Home keeper Michael Zetterer did well to keep out a low header from substitute Conor Bradley but there was nothing he could do as Liverpool levelled. With Frankfurt pushing for a second, Robertson somehow split the home defence with a 50-yard pass.
Ekitike received the ball on the halfway line, took just two touches to get inside his old side’s penalty area and then buried a shot past Zetterer for his sixth Reds goal this term.
If that was poor defending from Frankfurt, it was even worse when Van Dijk rose unchallenged to score from Gakpo’s corner.
It was Van Dijk’s 30th for the club and 26 of those have been headers.
As for Konate, every Liverpool goal he has scored has been in the air and his sixth for the club came when he met Szoboszlai’s corner just before half-time.
Italian international Chiesa, having replaced injured Isak, came close with an acrobatic shot while Zetterer denied both Wirtz and Bradley.
Yet Slot’s team were unstoppable and this display transported the away fans back to happier times.
Gakpo made it 4-0, his fourth of the season, thanks to a brilliantly weighted cross from Wirtz.
And on 70 minutes Szoboszlai, who now only seems to score cracking goals for Liverpool, drove a shot from distance through Robin Koch’s legs and into the corner.
The Hungarian international could not stop grinning.
And neither could Slot who, for once, was able to relax and watch his team enjoy themselves on the pitch.
Apart from Ekitike, Liverpool’s big signings from the Bundesliga have struggled.
The same goes for Benjamin Sesko who has not impressed at Manchester United after leaving from Leipzig. Although in fairness, Nick Woltemade has done OK at Newcastle since joining from Stuttgart.
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But on nights like this, the German top flight looks like it may not be as strong as we think it is.
So perhaps teams should avoid spending quite so much money on some of the division’s players.
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