Photo Credit - Liverpool Media.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot labelled Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah as “a special player” after he moved level with Gordon Hodgson into third place on the club’s all-time top goalscorers list.
The on-form Salah, reached the landmark following his goal in Liverpool’s 2-0 win against champions Manchester City on Sunday, a victory that stretched their lead at the summit to 11 points.
The goal at the Etihad enabled the Egyptian captain to take his Reds tally to 241, seeing him match the total Hodgson amassed for the club from 1926 to 1935.
Asked to to define Salah’s level this season, Slot told the club’s official website: “That’s been asked many times and it is difficult. I think the numbers speak for themselves. What pleased me most is that mostly we have – in every game apart from this one I think, and maybe the home game against City or Chelsea – more ball possession so that means we bring him many, many, many times in promising positions.
“But there wasn’t that many moments we could bring him in promising positions, but these seven, eight, nine or 10 moments that we gave him the ball in those positions he was every time a threat and that probably tells you even more the quality player he is, because it’s not so easy for an attacker if he has to defend, defend, defend.
“And then he gets the ball and does something special, that’s sometimes difficult but at the moment not many things seem difficult for Mo.”
On Salah’s opener, Slot explained: “He has done his work very, very, very well and you don’t always see the result of that during games because many times we were close to scoring. I always say, people might not know it over here yet, but if you go to Holland then people say, ‘There he is again about his set-pieces.’”
Salah achieved the latest landmark in his 387th Liverpool appearance, having arrived in June 2017 from AS Roma.
He been on the scoresheet on 180 occasions in the Premier League for the Reds, while firing in 45 goals in the Champions League, six in the Emirates FA Cup, five in the Europa League, four in the Carabao Cup and one in the Community Shield.
Salah will now be chasing Ian Rush (346) and Roger Hunt (285), who are the only players to have found the back of the net more in the club’s history.
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