EXCLUSIVE: Mohamed Salah exit timing was brilliant - Liverpool have already moved to replace him

Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version from Echo or go back to LFC Live.

The ECHO chats exclusively to Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler about Mohamed Salah's end-of-season exit and his former club's campaign as a wholeRobbie Fowler believes Liverpool are well placed to handle the end-of-season exit of Mohamed Salah as the iconic No.11 enters the final two months of a nine-year Anfield career.But the legendary Fowler - who was surpassed by Salah as the Reds' leading scorer of the Premier League era three years ago - admits the club will miss an "extraordinary" player who will go down as one of the all-time greats when he departs at the end of May.The Egyptian's glittering Liverpool career includes seven major honours, including two Premier League titles and the 2019 Champions League, while his 255 goals on Merseyside have only been bettered by Ian Rush and Roger Hunt across 134 years of club history.Fowler, who sits seventh on that particular list with 183, believes last summer's recruitment work, which saw the champions spend £320m on Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, proves the Reds were preparing for life after Salah at Anfield.FOLLOW OUR LIVERPOOL FC FACEBOOK PAGE! For anyone to get anywhere near those numbers again, you're talking about a very good player."And this is one of the things that I have sort of felt sorry for him for this year because, okay, we've seen he hasn't quite been the same player as some previous seasons in the past, but numbers-wise, if you've got his numbers and put him in another team, they would still be [viewed as] good."But because his numbers have been so extraordinary in the years gone by, especially last year, people want to see that all the time.

We have always found players to come in after the 'chosen one', if you like, has walked away and gone somewhere else."The club has done it for years and at the time you're probably thinking: 'This will never be the same'. But we have always gone on to do well."Fowler, speaking to the ECHO at Anfield in conjunction with club partners Haier, added: "Now I am not saying we're going to do that easily because you've still got to go out there and work and do the job."But I think the work was probably done last summer, bringing in Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz, because these are probably signed with the hope of seeing something after Mo Salah has left."I would be amazed if there's not some sort of formation change or a little changed in approach because the players that were signed who would thrive in a different formation and a different setting."It's quite right [Liverpool have been planning beyond Salah] because that is what football clubs need to do to grow.

Certain things have happened in games with results, players have been injured, we don't need to go too much into it but it hasn't been the perfect season."And again, if you talk about the pressures, trying to emulate what they did last season has been difficult but we still go towards the latter stages of the season with a realistic chance of winning silverware."That, for me, is the bare minimum at this football club, we should be doing that every season. So as much as we can't win the league, there's a realistic chance of going further in these competitions."And we've seen enough of Liverpool in the past, not just this season but in others gone by, you never write us off.