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Is Mo Salah already one of the best in Premier League history?

No player has scored more times in the Premier League this season than Mohamed Salah. Indeed, the six goals the Egyptian has scored in the seven games he has played for Liverpool this term demonstrate that the level the 29-year-old is currently operating at. He is without doubt one of the most devastating attackers in the English game right now.

Salah’s form is so good that it is transcending the Premier League and even his generation. The Egyptian’s numbers are so impressive that it could be argued he is one of the best the division has ever seen. All things considered, Salah is playing at a higher level than any other Premier League player since Cristiano Ronaldo during his first spell at Manchester United.

No player has scored more Premier League goals (101) than Salah since he made the move to Liverpool four years ago (Harry Kane has scored 88, Jamie Vardy has scored 82). In total, Salah has scored 133 goals in 211 appearances for Liverpool – he has also notched 45 assists for good measure.

Looking through Liverpool’s entire history as a club, only Gordon Hodgson, the legendary centre-forward of the 1930s, has a better goals-per-game ratio than Salah while no player has reached 100 league goals for the Anfield club quicker than the Egyptian international has. He is already a Liverpool great and is course to go down as one of the club’s best ever players.

Perhaps only Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema and Lionel Messi can claim to be operating at the same level as Salah right now and the latter has allowed his form to dip somewhat in the early stage of the season – Salah might well be better than the greatest player of all-time at this moment.

“Mo Salah is absolutely up there with him, there is no doubt about that,” Jurgen Klopp recently said. “Mo is a goal machine. His professionalism is absolutely second to none. He does everything to be always fit and stay on track. First in, last out, all these kind of things – that’s Mo. On top of that, apart from his technical skill set, he is desperate to score goals and that is helpful as well. That is exactly how it is with [Lewandowski]. That’s good and very helpful for a football player.

“Whatever you do on a pitch, whatever you create, you need somebody who brings the ball over the line and in the back of the net. Mo is absolutely there with the best I ever saw. He knows that. The numbers he has are insane. I’m obviously blessed to work with some good players.”

They don’t come much better than Salah. He is the epitome of the modern forward. Salah might be a wide forward, but he has the instincts of a centre forward in the way he knows how to put himself in goalscoring positions. Klopp has build his Liverpool attack around the Egyptian – he offers the Reds so much.

Of course, the Premier League has produced many superstars over the last decade or so – see Gareth Bale, Kevin de Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Luis Suarez among others – but Salah is more complete in what he offers. He can dribble, he can shoot from distance, he can finish from close range, he can thread a through ball, there is nothing he can’t do.

After a difficult 2020/21 campaign, Liverpool once again have the look of title challengers and that is largely down to the form of Salah who only appears to be getting better. He has never been more potent than he is now. If he is already one of the best the Premier League has ever seen, it’s frightening to think how much higher he might climb.

 


 

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