But it's not about the results or the numbers. How good is Salah, and why does he always escape detection and stay so good?
Salah (middle) plays well for Liverpool
The legendary Ian Rush is Liverpool's all-time leading goalscorer, but Rush's 346 goals came in 660 games, while Salah took just 327 games to become the fifth player to score 200 goals for Liverpool. In the Premier League era alone, Salah is Anfield's top scorer, with 148 goals in 234 games. The key difference: Rush is a true centre-forward, while Salah is a natural winger. This is an important technical detail that speaks to Salah's brilliance.
Besides Salah, Raheem Sterling (Liverpool, Man.City, Chelsea) is the most famous winger who can move into the middle and score a lot of goals on the English pitch today. Sterling has scored 120 goals in 364 matches, in more than 10 years. Still far behind the number of goals that Salah scored in 7 and a half years, with much fewer matches. Previously, there was Ryan Giggs (MU) or Thierry Henry (Arsenal). Giggs only scored 114 goals in 672 matches, spanning... 24 years. Henry needs no introduction. In fact, he was discovered by coach Arsene Wenger and turned into a center forward at Arsenal. Salah only needs to score 25 more goals to surpass Henry's total goals in his playing career at Arsenal.
Many years ago, Liverpool lost Salah (when he was playing for Basel) to Chelsea, because the Stamford Bridge team paid more. Salah was lackluster at Chelsea with 2 goals in 19 matches, and was loaned to Fiorentina and then AS Roma. Salah has never reached the milestone of scoring 20 goals in a season. Since coming to Liverpool (in 2017), he has not known what a number below 20 goals per season is. In more than half of his 7 seasons at Liverpool, he has scored more than 30 goals.
That's because in addition to his individual talent, Salah also benefited from Juergen Klopp's excellent coaching and people-viewing skills at Liverpool. He adjusted Salah's playing style and chose the right tactics for Liverpool, so that both the individual and the team could succeed. Salah at Liverpool is completely different from Salah at the previous 5 teams. This is also the similarity with Thierry Henry's case. The difference is that Wenger turned the (normal) winger Henry into the (excellent) center forward Henry. Klopp turned a Salah who was confused in his playing style, which changed from time to time, into the perfect, versatile Salah. At Liverpool, Salah's problem is not whether he should play as a winger or center forward, but how to choose the right role and solution at each moment, so that in the end he is good at everything!
Salah's brilliance will certainly help Liverpool compete for the Premier League title this season.
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