Mohamed Salah proves Gary Neville's "feeling" about him at Liverpool was wrong
Mohamed Salah stands on the brink of making yet more history for Liverpool after he netted in the 4-0 demolition of LASK in the Europa League on Thursday.
Salah scored a second-half penalty to move onto 199 goals for the club on the night when he also wore the captain’s armband for the first time. He can join Ian Rush, Roger Hunt, Gordon Hodgson and Billy Liddell in the select 200-goal club on Sunday when he lines up against Fulham in the Premier League.
The Egyptian has 199 goals and 84 assists in 324 appearances altogether since joining the club in 2017 from Roma. He has firmly established himself as the team’s biggest star, a club legend and, arguably, the Premier League’s best player.
His six years with the Reds come in spite of constant speculation of a transfer away from Merseyside. Salah has been persistently linked with Real Madrid over the years, while the newly-rich Saudi Pro League offered a new threat over the summer.
Salah signed a new contract with Liverpool in July 2022, which made him the highest-paid player in the club’s history at £350,000-a-week. He is under contract until June 2025, but even if he does leave for the millions of Saudi Arabia in the summer, he will have proven Gary Neville emphatically wrong.
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"I said 18 months ago I thought Mo Salah would leave Liverpool," Neville said on Sky Sports way back in February 2020. "I think it's a little bit more simple in the sense of why Liverpool fans maybe don't demonstrate that love for Salah, and it's affinity and loyalty. I think there's a feeling that he wants to go and play at Real Madrid, he'll go to Barcelona – he'll take the big move.
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"That's not a criticism of Mo Salah. I played with David Beckham, I played with Ruud van Nistelrooy, I played with Cristiano Ronaldo – they wanted to aspire to win the Ballon d'Or, they wanted to be at Real Madrid, they wanted to be up in lights and play at the biggest clubs in the world.
"I think there's a feeling: affinity, loyalty, will he leave us? I think he could. I think he is ultimately using Liverpool potentially as a stepping stone for his career. He has aspirations to be [at a club like Madrid or Barca]. Let's be honest, Real Madrid and Barcelona for a lot of players are the pinnacle."
Without leaving for pastures new, Salah has managed to achieve plenty during his time at Liverpool. He has won the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup, as well as two Premier League golden boots and a whole host of other personal accolades.
Speaking ahead of the LASK game, Klopp hailed Salah’s workrate and professionalism, which have provided the foundations for his success at Liverpool. “He is a completely different player to the one who arrived here and he was good at that time, that’s why we signed him. Now his experience in dealing with different situation... he is a completely different animal,” he said.
“He is really good with his team-mates, all the offensive players look up to him and he is really supportive to them. That is a really good connection. In the beginning, Mo had to be more for himself and find his feet and himself and the way to impress me and maybe prove some people wrong. That’s completely settled now. Having still this desire to score makes him the player he is and that is pretty special. I’ve said it a million times, long may it continue.”
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