Much Mo to look forward to this season: The Sporting Life by Rudraneil Sengupta

Mohamed Salah, arguably the greatest footballer in the world right now, is promising to return Liverpool to the League title and possibly break the goal-scoring record again.

Mo Salah plays, Mo Salah scores.

Set that to the tune of Green Sally Up and perhaps this could be a new Anfield chant.

It’s true though. Mo Salah plays, Mo Salah scores.

He’s now played 12 games for Liverpool this season (as of Saturday evening), three of those in the Champions League, and scored 15 times and made five assists.

That’s the best start he’s had to the League and that’s saying something for the man who holds the Premiership’s goal-scoring record (32, set in 2017-18).

Dear reader, allow me to lay down a wager here. It’s ridiculously early in the season, I know, but I bet Salah will break the League’s goal-scoring record again this season. And in doing that, he will take Liverpool to the League title again.

That’s assuming he stays injury-free, but going by the shape he’s in — if you don’t watch his shirt-off goal celebrations, head over to his Instagram account, where it seems like he has a self-imposed rule to appear shirtless — and the fact that he has almost never been injured, there’s a very bright chance that, week in and week out, Salah will play and Salah will score.

That’s basically a year’s worth of thrills sorted. As the long and delightful eras of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo enter their twilight, Salah has emerged, arguably, as the greatest footballer in the world today.

In the uplifting, enchanting and colourful era of Jurgen Klopp — this is his sixth year as Liverpool coach — the team has found truly magical players across the field. Sadio Mane, Jordan Henderson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Roberto Firmino, Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson Becker are a once-in-a-generation set who, together, form a fearsome and astonishing team. Yet, if there’s one player who defines the ongoing Klopp era, it’s the Egyptian forward with a crazy mop of hair, flying into the box like a man possessed.

Salah ended his debut season for Liverpool with 44 goals across competitions, and the all-time scoring record for a single season. The next season was even more eventful for Liverpool. They became champions of Europe, and failed to win the Premier League despite losing just one of their 38 matches and picking up 97 points (it was just that Manchester City had 98). Salah finished as its top scorer, tied at 22 goals with Mane and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Next season was Liverpool’s League redemption, the end of a 30-year wait, and yet again Salah was the team’s top scorer (23 across competitions). Even in the blip of their 2020-21 season, Salah scored 31 goals across competitions and was behind the league’s top scorer Harry Kane by just one goal.

In each of the last three of Liverpool matches, Salah has scored remarkable goals. Against Manchester City he dropped a bunch of defenders by the wayside to score what former Manchester United player Gary Neville, in his commentary, called “a goal from another planet”.

In the next game, against Watford, Salah once again brought out his sensational close-close control skills, feinting and weaving past a clutch of defenders inside the box before coolly finding the back of the net.

In the 5-0 thrashing of Manchester United in the next match, the goal that floored was the one where Henderson unleashed a long, spectacular pass with the outside of his foot. A pass that went right through United’s defensive formation and, on the force of the spin imparted by that outside-of-the-foot flick, bent towards the onrushing Salah. Salah took two touches to move towards the goal and lure the goalkeeper out before stabbing in a perfectly timed, perfectly placed ball.

It reminded me of past magic: of a team of players so special that they could go an entire season without being beaten once. In that era of Arsenal, there was always someone who could send out a long, languid pass that would split the opponent’s defence. And there was always one man that pass would end up with — Thierry Henry.

Like Henry’s entry into Arsenal, Salah came into Liverpool as a winger no one thought much of. No one except Klopp and his scouts.