Former Liverpool man Steve Nicol gave his opinion on Mohamed Salah recently. His comments show just how misunderstood the Egyptian remains.
“Salah’s form this season, is there a guy that frustrates you more in the Premier League or anywhere else with the things he does in a game?” Nicol told ESPN.
“Then all of a sudden he will produce something. But again, he plays every game and why? Because they win.”
Or, more likely, Salah plays because he’s one of the most productive players in the world. The fact that people still miss that fact is actually quite remarkable.
Salah has bagged 20 goals this season and assisted another eight. His 16 Premier League goals are enough for joint-third with Sergio Aguero – a player no one is labelling as ‘frustrating’.
And yet, Salah is still considered frustrating, even by a Liverpool legend.
It’s almost as though Nicol is missing the ‘point’ with Salah. Is he as clinical as Aguero or someone like Robert Lewandowski? No, he isn’t. But then, he’s not a striker.
Salah gets his goals and assists through quantity, not necessarily through quality. And that’s fine – it’s a perfectly valid way of doing things. Because Salah’s brilliance comes from his ability to work opportunities in every single game.
His pace, his dribbling, his movement – all contribute to a player capable of finding the gaps and the space in any defence. No, he doesn’t always score but he usually does.
Salah is Liverpool’s top scorer, after all, and has been every season since his £34m arrival. So it’s absolute nonsense to suggest Salah only plays every game ‘because [Liverpool] win’. It’s the other way around – Liverpool win a lot because they have a player as productive as Salah.
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