Mohamed Salah has not been used to sustained criticism during his distinguished career with Liverpool.
Nevertheless, after a decidedly lukewarm start to the season, the Egyptian has seen plenty of it over recent weeks.
Salah simply has not got going ever since signing a lucrative new contract with Liverpool in April.
There are plenty of mitigating factors for the time being, but some have begun to question whether the 33-year-old has started to enter an inevitable decline.
Whatever the case, nobody can deny that Salah has been one of the most compelling figures of the past decade of Premier League football.
Having scooped the PFA Player of the Year four times – and won the same amount of Golden Boots, there is an argument that Salah is in fact the division’s greatest ever player. That is a question former Man United winger Luis Nani has been doing his best to answer.
Nani doesn’t think Mohamed Salah is the Premier League’s best
Nani was a fine Premier League player himself, winning the title four times across an eight-year stint with United.
Although the Portuguese does not touch Salah in terms of individual achievements, his status as an electric winger means he is relatively well-placed to comment on the Egypt legend.
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And while Nani tells WinWin that he is a big fan of Salah, he does not appear to consider him the greatest to ever play in the Premier League.
“Mohamed Salah is a fantastic player. Everyone knows everything he’s done in the Premier League, what he continues to do. He’s a great character. He’s a great player,” says the 38-year-old. “I think he’s a player who made a big history in the Premier League.”
“But to tell he’s the best in the history, there is a lot of players behind. But I really like him as a player. His personality is fantastic. He’s a very good role model on the football side. I believe he’s a person who gives a lot to the sport.
“Obviously, now he’s getting in the age where probably he’s not the same as before,” Nani adds. “But he continues there in the team playing fantastic, scoring his goals with a very good ambition. He’s in one of the best teams in the world. Liverpool are doing great, so he’s a great man.”
What more must Salah achieve?
There is a very reasonable debate to be had that Salah is in fact the greatest Premier League player of all-time.
The person most often associated with that title is Arsenal great Thierry Henry, but Salah has now virtually matched the Frenchman in every aspect.
The two players have the same amount of league titles and the same number of Golden Boot wins. Salah has scored more, assisted more and been named as the division’s outstanding player in more seasons.
Perhaps the only thing Henry has over the Liverpool legend is a more aesthetically pleasing style of football. But football is not a beauty contest.
Should Salah pick up one more title during what will likely be his final two years at Liverpool, perhaps those such as Nani will start to change their tune.
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