The goals. So many goals whilst wearing the Liver Bird. Memories of what Mo Salah has done for Liverpool will never be forgotten…
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is – streaking through the centre of the pitch against Southampton. Hasn’t scored in the league for six weeks or so in a game we need to win which is ebbing away, and Roberto Firmino is just there, begging to be used.
He uses him by not using him and the ball arrows into the corner off the post, off his left foot and the away end goes madder than any I have been in and he takes his top off because he knows. He understands.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is – heading home against Manchester City from an Andy Robertson cross that just begged to be converted. But the cross is so irresistible because Robertson knows where he will be and he just gobbles it up and turns one into two and makes clear that Liverpool will become league champions for the nineteenth time. It’s a marvellous goal full of quality and significance, one of the greatest Anfield has ever seen, the reigning champions despatched.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is – and then he is gone. Arsenal at home the year he arrived and the video you know is the cartoonish camera in the tunnel. Just this streak leaving the whole world in his wake and heading towards the people who would become his people, headlong. We remember the sheer speed but then the calm, composed finish that also became his trademark. That ability to just put the ball where the goalkeeper couldn’t get to.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is – 40 yards out, two seasons before, making a fool of the same opposition. Anfield is a cauldron of noise, as loud as you have ever known it and Liverpool are arriving. An attack, conclusively built with him at its apex in the aftermath of Philippe Coutinho’s sale, dismembering the unbeaten Champions Elect to cacophonous racket they cannot shake off.
It was being built around him. He was about to score 44 goals in a season. He was becoming Liverpool’s best player, the man the opposition most need to worry about. The man we most adored.
His play magical; miraculous. So unbelievable that teams at first doubled up defenders, then trebled, then entire back fours would be charged with dealing with him. Defenders had to resort to tangling their arms around him to try to stop his feet finding the killer pass, the killer goal. In Liverpool’s finest moments, whole teams would be obsessed with stopping him that much, we would exploit the wide open spaces they would leave on the other side. He drew them on. He knew what he was doing. And we all won everything.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is – putting it beyond doubt at Bournemouth in February 2025 with a gorgeous lifted lob. He’s already scored the opener with a penalty but Bournemouth never stop coming and Liverpool need the points. There is a league title to be won in front of supporters and everything has been built to produce the most impactful version of himself.
He took that pressure on his shoulders. The play was ever more about the platform for him and that meant he had to deliver. Liverpool’s 20th league title is as much about him as the 83/84 season’s is about Ian Rush or the 89/90 is John Barnes or the 81/82 win is all Kenny. More goals and assists than anybody else. More moments. More plaudits.
This is the company he keeps. The rare air he breathes. The standard he set.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink and there he is. Because I am a masochistic oddball, one of mine will always be against Wolves in 21/22 when he thinks he has scored the goal that wins Liverpool the league. It’s a scruffy moment but there he is and the passion screams through him. He loses his mind. This is what he is in it for. He has been bringing bedlam in the biggest moments since the Etihad in 2018 but now we see him madder than us, more determined than us, needing more than wanting more than us.
Less than twenty minutes later he will be presented with the golden boot as top scorer of the season and will be in tears. Because Liverpool didn’t win the league. Liverpool didn’t win. What is all for if Liverpool don’t win?
He’s a man riven with identities. He makes clear the depth and humility of his faith on the pitch. You hope that he knows what an impact he has had on our community. An Egyptian. An Arab. A Muslim. A proud Muslim. Prayer on the pitch. Leadership we need in these woeful, hateful times. A man so steeped in the existence of Liverpool Football Club that he shapes what it means for all of us to be a red. You hope he knows how much we have loved to see his family grow up with us, from that first goal Makka scores into the Kop to now.
But even then, my favourite thing is when he scores a goal, celebrates, shows his faith and humility but then turns and has one last look – get on me, though. Get on me. So Liverpudlian but then that is what he is as well, and as much as all the rest. One of ours. One of the greatest.
You’ll have your favourite.
Blink – that mad counter attack against West Ham during lockdown.
Blink – sealing the deal against Manchester United in January 2020.
Blink – dancing around every Manchester City player in 2021.
Blink – doing it to Watford the week after.
Blink – equalising versus Arsenal last season at the Emirates, all levered poise.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
You’ll have your favourite. Mohamed Salah will always be mine.
