With his winning goal for Liverpool against Brighton & Hove Albion and a string of records broken, Mohamed Salah is writing the most amazing chapter of his Premier League career.
In other news, Serhou Guirassy carried on with his incredible Bundesliga season; Mikayil Faye maintained his incredible week as a Barcelona B player; and Sébastien Haller made his most recent Borussia Dortmund comeback against Bayern Munich.
Liverpool’s match against Brighton gave the Reds a chance to close the gap on at least one of their title contenders, as Arsenal and Manchester City would clash later on Sunday. With nine games remaining, Liverpool’s win moved them up to 67 points, two ahead of Arsenal and three ahead of City following their 0-0 draw at the Etihad Stadium.
Although there were non-negotiable home points at risk after this lackluster performance by Liverpool at Anfield, even a subpar Reds team can still win all three points if they had Salah on their roster.
Due to a hamstring injury he suffered against Ghana at the Africa Cup of Nations, this was the talisman’s first Premier League start since New Year’s Day. In actuality, he should have crushed Brighton three times in the first half.
Following the game, Jurgen Klopp remarked, “I imagine Mo would have finished all those situations in his career, but that would have been a crazy number.” “The finishes weren’t as good as he can do.”
Playing in Luis Díaz for Liverpool’s equalizer in the 27th minute, Salah made his first significant move by reaching the ball ahead of Carlos Baleba and heading it back into the danger zone, where the Colombian poked in from point-blank range.
The Merseysiders worked hard for the winner, and just after the hour, Salah—found unguarded in the box by a superb ball from Alexis Mac Allister—secured maximum points with a laser-like finish.
Although the forward’s performance showed signs of rust, his 12 shots on goal were still his personal “best” in the top flight, and no Liverpool player has matched that total since Opta Sports started keeping track of the metric in 2003.
With the goal and the assist, Salah’s league-wide direct goal total for this season is now 25, and he plans to surpass the 31 goals and 12 assists from the previous season.
Salah is the third player since the league’s inception in 1992 to have at least 25 goal involvements in seven straight Premier League campaigns. He is tied with Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer for the record.
Since joining Liverpool, Salah has averaged a goal or an assist every 91 minutes. He will be acutely aware that if he can continue to produce at this rate in the upcoming weeks, it might mean the difference between Klopp winning one or two Premier League titles during his time at Anfield.
