To put it mildly, Mo Salah enjoyed yesterday’s visit to the London Stadium a lot more than his previous outing at the venue eight months ago.
Liverpool’s 2-2 draw away to West Ham in April was overshadowed by a touchline row between the winger and his then-manager Jurgen Klopp, with the Egyptian declaring in the post-match mixed zone that ‘if I speak today, there will be fire’.
Fast forward to 29 December, and the 32-year-old produced a goal and two assists in a 5-0 drubbing of the Irons, taking his personal tally to 20 goals for the season in all competition and 30 goal contributions in the Premier League alone (Transfermarkt).
What Salah did for his first assist on Sunday was breathtaking even by his world-class standards as he made a mockery of two opposition players.
He flicked the ball behind him and through the legs of Konstantinos Mavropanos before swivelling and producing another nutmeg on Max Kilman, with Cody Gakpo then finishing the move to make it 2-0 in the 40th minute.
The Egyptian King admitted afterwards that, while the first of those was unintentional, the second was his ‘only option’.
Even if Salah didn’t plan the first nutmeg, the fact that he pulled off two in immediate succession sums up the confidence with which he’s currently playing, with West Ham having no answer to such majestic audacity.
We’ve long since become accustomed to seeing the 32-year-old rack up huge scoring numbers for Liverpool, but his figures for the season already are simply mind-boggling, as is the club’s failure to have his contract situation sorted out by now.
Supporters’ nerves won’t have been eased by our number 11 saying after the match that a new deal still seems ‘far away’ from completion, and what club in the world wouldn’t love to have a player of such generational quality in their squad?
Whether it’s only for half a season longer, or a couple more years beyond that, we should just savour every moment that Salah is representing the Reds. Sunday’s masterclass in east London showed why Jamie Carragher is right to speak of him as a genuine Ballon d’Or contender for 2025.
You can view Salah’s double nutmeg on Mavropanos and Kilman below, via @LFC on X:
The touch from Mo and Cody with the finish pic.twitter.com/0DJkTrKY82
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 29, 2024
The post (Video) Mo Salah made a mockery of West Ham duo with outrageous trickery in Liverpool romp appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
