Erling Haaland has named his top three players of 2021 and Liverpool fans aren’t happy.
The Norwegian was sitting down with ESPN’s Jan Aage Fjortoft. During the interview, Fjortoft asked for his thoughts on who the best three players of the past year were. From a Liverpool point of view, there was a glaring omission.
“That’s a good question,” began Haaland. “I think you’d have to say Lewandowski number one. Then you have, for me, Benzema has also been amazing. But Messi is also outstanding.”
“So Benzema and Messi share second and third place I think I have to say.”
There’s not much to argue about with his choice for number one. Lewandowski was sensational last year for Bayern Munich and was desperately unlucky to lose out in the Ballon d’Or to Messi.
But Mohamed Salah should surely have garnered a mention. Liverpool fans certainly think so and they took to Twitter to point out Haaland’s mistake.
Mo overlooked again
Although it’s just one man’s opinion, it feeds into a wider narrative of Salah being left out of these kind of conversations.
He finished a lowly 7th in the Ballon d’Or in November. The Egyptian was then overlooked completely for the recent FIFA The Best Team of The Year, although he did finish in the top three of the individual award.
Furthermore, Liverpool have reportedly been exploring the idea of bringing Haaland to Anfield (Sky Germany).
Viewed through that lens, it seems the 22-year-old would prefer to play with players other than Liverpool’s star attraction.
The transfer is surely an outside shot anyway. But had he namechecked Salah here, it would have been seen as a good sign of Liverpool’s chances of signing him.
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