Mohamed Salah has exceeded all expectations since joining Liverpool from AS Roma in the summer of 2017.The Reds paid a reported £34.3 million for the Egyptian forward - a fee which didn’t take long to feel like an absolute bargain.Salah has scored 97 goals in 156 games for the Merseyside outfit and won two Premier League Golden Boot awards.Like the very best strikers, Salah has an insatiable appetite for goals.If he doesn’t score, you get the impression he comes off the pitch disappointed - even if Liverpool win. For better or worse, this is a trait that every truly great goalscorer possesses.
Salah didn’t score in Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Arsenal on Monday, but you could tell he was desperate to.There were two moments towards the end of the match, both involving summer signing Diogo Jota, which showed the best and worst of the 28-year-old.The best of Salah was seen in the 83rd minute when he cut in from the right flank and played an exquisite pass through to Jota.The former Wolves star was presented with a golden opportunity to open his account for the Reds, but he could only hit the side-netting.Salah was denied what would have been a magnificent assist.Just minutes later, though, Salah appeared to literally tackle his own teammate in his quest for a goal.The ball was played to Jota, who would have had another great chance to make it 3-1 to Liverpool had Salah not nipped the ball away from him.The chance subsequently went begging."That is the selfish part of Salah," Sky Sports co-commentary Gary Neville said at the time. "He's thought 'you're not having it, you've had a go already. I'm taking it off you'. But it wasn't there for him. It was Jota's ball. Salah's greed, which is one of his great strengths and why he scores so many goals but... he should have left it for his mate, it wasn't his, he could never get there."
After seeing the replay, Neville added: “You can’t do that. As great a player as he is, he knows it's not a particularly good look that one."Plenty of football fans on social media agreed…
However, without this hunger to score goals in each and every match he plays, Salah wouldn’t be as prolific as he is.
Speaking earlier this month, Neville compared Salah’s appetite to score goals to that of Cristiano Ronaldo.
"You think about the mentality difference between [Sadio] Mane and Salah," Neville told Sky Sports. "Mane is likeable. I think the players probably love him, he gives his all every single day, he'll do the selfless thing for the team.
"Then you look at Salah over the other side. He doesn't pass sometimes to his team-mates. He's a little bit more selfish and a little bit less likeable because of that, probably to the fans and to his own team-mates.
"But then, I look at him as an outsider and I'm thinking that he is an absolute killer on the pitch.
"It reminds me of the twin tracking of [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Wayne] Rooney in the mid-2000s. That's where Mane and Salah are now.
"I think Salah will end up going above Mane, not because Mane's not a great player, he is a great player as Rooney was, but the reason players [like Salah or Ronaldo] are different is that they have something up here which means that they go home at night and being the best player in the world rocks their world, whereas a Rooney or a Mane, they feel that the team's got to win, I've got to give my all, I'll fight for my team-mates. Salah doesn't do that."