Ian Wright has heaped praise on legendary Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah.
Salah underlined his iconic status at Liverpool by scoring his 200th goal for the club against Crystal Palace at the weekend.
It’s a remarkable achievement from the Egyptian, who becomes just the fifth player in the Reds’ illustrious history to reach the landmark. Coincidentally, it was also Mo’s 150th goal in the Premier League.
And speaking on The Kelly & Wrighty Show yesterday, Wright claimed that Salah is now undoubtedly a great in the division’s history.
“He’s one of the greats without a doubt in the Premier League,” gushed the former Arsenal striker. “I remember when he came from Roma, it was the kind of signing you went ‘Mo Salah, wasn’t he at Chelsea? Oh he’s done okay in Italy, let’s see how he does’.
“But he has been sensational, especially in that Liverpool side that had to chase down City like they did and they did it.”
Salah still going strong
Back when Salah’s £34m move to Liverpool was announced, plenty felt the same way as Wright.
It’s fair to say that his spell at Chelsea made for a slightly underwhelming feeling among the Reds fanbase and the outside world, too.
Ever since then though, Mo really hasn’t looked backed. His 44-goal debut season remains his best by some distance for Liverpool and it announced the Egyptian as one of the best players in the country.
Six years on from that campaign, and Salah is now inarguably one of the very best to ever play for this club.
Time will tell just how far he can climb up that list. Of course, the question marks over his future do still remain, with Saudi Arabia lining up another assault next summer.
But should Salah stay at Anfield, there really is no limit to what he can do. At 31 and in truly ridiculous shape, he could play for seven, eight years at the top yet.
If the majority of that time is spent at Liverpool, you really can’t rule out Mo scoring the 147 goals needed to break Ian Rush’s all-time scoring record.
Salah is currently scoring an average of 30 goals per season for Liverpool. At that rate, he’ll need four more years more or less after this one. Unlikely, yes. But impossible? Certainly not. Regardless, what Salah has achieved will live on forever. Sensational is just one way of describing it.
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Micah Richards has detailed what Mohamed Salah told him how his future would pan out at ACF Fiorentina before the winger moved to Liverpool.
It’s easy to forget that the Egyptian international was once on Chelsea’s books having become one of the great ‘ones that got away’ for the Blues, alongside Kevin De Bruyne.
Given the nature of being a Chelsea player, Salah was sent out on loan to Fiorentina in 2014, where the attacker would start to become the winger we all know and love today.
And speaking on the Monday Night Club, Richards detailed what Salah used to tell him on the way to training, with the pair carpooling together during their time at Fiorentina.
Richards said: “Salah was just such a normal, humble, hard-working person. He had a little bit of banter as well. He has got that bit of arrogant side to him. I asked him ‘what are you going to do after Fiorentina’.
“And he said I am going to be one of the best players in the world. He said that to me, in the car. He said trust me, you wait. And I just believed him. He put it into practice and he has made it a reality. That’s fair play to him!”
Mohamed Salah’s confidence has made the winger a Liverpool legend
Salah’s confidence levels cannot be underestimated, with the Liverpool attacker’s swagger and poise something that has now made the winger a legend at Anfield.
And based on Richards’ comments, the forward had dreams and motivation to become the very best and quite a young age, with Fiorentina the beginning of Salah’s story after doing little at Chelsea.
Indeed, Liverpool has proven to be the perfect club for Salah, with Jurgen Klopp unlocking the winger’s true potential and taking the attacking to the pinnacle of the game on Merseyside.
And after hitting goal number 200 for the Reds on Saturday, it’s incredible to think just how far Salah has come in six whirlwind years with Liverpool.
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Jurgen Klopp has praised the business Liverpool managed to pull off during the summer transfer window.
The Reds had one of their busier windows of recent times this year, signing four brand new players.
So far, all of Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo have been hits. However, it was nearly very different for Liverpool. Back in August, they appeared to be on the verge of signing both Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia.
In the end though, both players turned the Reds down, signing for Chelsea instead. Since then, things haven’t exactly gone to plan for Caicedo and Lavia, with the Blues sitting in 12th placed in the Premier League.
Liverpool on the other hand are top of the pile. And speaking at a test event for Liverpool’s new Anfield Road stand via Beanymansports last night, Klopp cheekily declared the Reds to have had a ‘lucky’ escape. Having made a slight dig at the Chelsea pair, Jurgen went on to give a special mention to Endo in particular.
“We found Endo and he is an exceptional player, he is absolutely,” raved the boss. “He’s 30-years-old, experienced with Japan. The transfer market is like that, you don’t go for a 30-year-old player who plays in Germany and nearly got relegated but thank God we looked about things twice. He wanted to come definitely and that helps.”
Klopp aims Caicedo dig
If you’ve been on Twitter over the past 12 hours or so, then you won’t have missed Klopp’s barely veiled comments about Caicedo and Lavia.
“In the summer we had with a few strange things happened in the transfer market,” said the Liverpool manager. “But here between us I can say my god we were lucky there! We didn’t realise it in the moment, but… yeah, I’m really happy that it worked out like that!
“We had a really good feeling before we started the pre-season, Macca and Dom were already in. We knew there’s a chance for Ryan then we obviously realised that other central defensive midfielders don’t want to join Liverpool! You see what happens…”
This has obviously enraged Chelsea fans, but we think it’s absolutely gold from Jurgen. There was no real reason for any midfielder to turn Liverpool down to move to Stamford Bridge this summer.
Despite a poor season, the Reds were obviously in much better nick than Mauricio Pochettino’s side. There was also the rare possibility that whoever joined as a defensive midfielder would pretty much walk straight into the side.
In a purely footballing sense, there was absolutely no logical explanation for what Caicedo and Lavia ended up choosing this summer.
It must be said that it’s still early days for both of them at Stamford Bridge, and Klopp obviously knows that too. But six months in, and Chelsea are having a miserable campaign. Caicedo has struggled and Lavia is still yet to make his Blues debut. Had they joined Liverpool instead, it’s likely they’d be in a much better place right now.
Still, there’s no use harking after what could have been. As Klopp points out, Endo jumped at the chance to join Liverpool and is proving his worth as a tidy acquisition. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Alan Shearer has lauded Mohamed Salah after the Liverpool winger made history on Saturday against Crystal Palace.
The attacker bagged his 200th goal for the Reds in a 2-1 win for Jurgen Klopp’s side, with Salah joining the likes of Ian Rush and Roger Hunt in the exclusive club.
Signed for £34m in 2017 by Jurgen Klopp, Salah is comfortably one of Liverpool’s best-ever signings and arguably the best African player ever to set foot on English soil.
And speaking on The Rest is Football podcast, Shearer was full of nonstop praise for Salah, who has not immortalised himself in Premier League folklore with his latest record for Liverpool.
Indeed, few players can leave as big an impact on a top English side as Salah, and the winger is now surely a modern-day legend for Liverpool after scoring 200 goals for the Reds.
Shearer said: “Amazing, amazing. Everything about him is just brilliant isn’t it? Goals, attitude, What a player. Was it 150 Premier League goals he now has? What an unbelievable record that is.”
Liverpool will pray Mohamed Salah wants to stay next summer
As we know, Saudi Arabia’s reported interest in Salah is not going away, with a move next summer now extremely likely for the Egyptian winger.
Yet if Liverpool can win the Premier League, it could be enough to convince Salah to stay for an extra year or two, where the attacker could break even more records for the Reds.
Few players in our lifetimes will leave as big an impact on Liverpool than Salah, and the winger is good enough to keep playing for the Merseyside giants beyond this season.
Liverpool are considering the possibility of recalling one of their on-loan contingent in January.
It has been a strange season for Liverpool’s players in temporary homes so far. Fabio Carvalho is perhaps the most high-profile of these and has been having a dreadful time at RB Leipzig. Meanwhile, Nat Phillips has also been struggling for football at Celtic.
There have been calls for the Reds to bring both back to Anfield in the New Year.
But according to The Daily Mail, it’s another Liverpool player North of the border who could now be told to get himself home. They claim that Phillips’ one-time central defensive partner Rhys Williams is being considered for a return to Jurgen Klopp’s squad.
Williams has remarkably failed to make a single appearance since joining Aberdeen in the summer. As a result of that – and of Joel Matip’s recent injury – Liverpool are said to be ‘considering’ cancelling the 22-year-old’s spell.
The Reds are said to be set to ‘take stock’ of their defensive options following Matip’s season-ending issue. This could reportedly lead to Williams being brought back in to ‘ease the burden’ on Klopp’s current options.
Liverpool considering Williams return
As things stand, the decision to bring Williams back would surely be simply an admission that it just hasn’t worked for him at Aberdeen.
Unless things go badly wrong between now and May, there’s no way he should be getting a game for Liverpool. If the former academy graduate ends up back at Anfield, it shouldn’t be with a view of using him at any stage.
That might sound harsh, but it’s clear by now that Williams does not have a long-term future with the Reds.
Now 22, it feels incredibly unlikely that he’ll add to the 19 appearances he has under Klopp so far.
It isn’t like Williams hasn’t had chances to prove himself either. But if he does come back this January, it would represent the third year in a row that the centre-back has had a season-long loan cancelled at the halfway point.
In 2021/22, Williams left Swansea having made just seven appearances for the first-team. The same thing happened last year, when he came back from Blackpool with 17 games under his belt.
And now, having failed to play a single game for Aberdeen, Williams’ career has arguably hit a new low.
In fairness to him, the England U21 international did do a very good job of filling in back in 2020/21. Under the circumstances, Williams really stepped up and was deservedly called ‘outstanding’ by Klopp [The Daily Mail]. But that was now three years ago, and the intervening time has shown that, unfortunately, the defender just isn’t of the level required.
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