Mohamed Salah can eclipse Luis Suarez by becoming a true Liverpool legend, according to former Reds striker Robbie Fowler.
Fowler, who scored 183 goals in 369 appearances for Liverpool across two separate spells, believes Salah has similar qualities to some of the club’s best ever players.
Is Salah on his way to Liverpool legend status? Five key things to know…
- Liverpool signed Salah from AS Roma in the summer of 2017 despite his previous spell in England with Chelsea being deemed a failure.
- Salah started slowly but finished the season with 44 goals in all competitions, winning the Premier League Golden Boot.
- The Egyptian injured his shoulder in the Champions League final, which Liverpool lost, and subsequently struggled for his country at the World Cup.
- Those struggles continued into the beginning of the current season, but Salah is now back to his best and is starting to score important goals again.
- He is the Premier League’s joint-leading goalscorer this term on 10 goals, level with Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Salah is yet to win a trophy with Liverpool, but the Merseysiders are currently top of the Premier League going into Friday’s meeting with Wolves.
And Fowler believes Salah could become an all-time Liverpool great, something he thinks Suarez failed to achieve.
“I’m not shy in saying that I believe if Mo Salah stays with the club long term, then he has already shown the qualities to suggest he has a real shot of joining those ranks of the true legends,” Fowler told the Mirror.
“I’ve played with the best at Liverpool, the likes of [Ian] Rush and [John] Barnes, [Steven] Gerrard and [Steve] McManaman, so I reckon I know a thing or two about what it takes. Salah has similar qualities, no doubt.
“You saw this last season and you’ve seen it again this time around. Napoli (in this month’s decisive final Champions League group game) was a brilliant example where he was the difference. So often he scores the first goal in a tight game, or the winning goal. It’s not a coincidence.
“Salah has shown already that he’s not a one-season wonder, he’s a real player. But I’m something of a stickler for longevity when it comes to greatness.
“People go on about Luis Suarez, and no doubt he was a top player for the club, but one of their all-time best? Not a chance – because he was only there for three and a bit seasons. It also leaves a bad taste in the mouth the way he left the club, by so obviously engineering a move, not once but twice.”
How do Salah and Suarez compare for Liverpool?
Suarez’s best season at Liverpool came in his final campaign. In 2013/14, he found the net 31 times in 33 Premier League matches having missed the beginning of the season through suspension.
Salah went one better by scoring 32 goals in his debut Premier League season for Liverpool, although it took him 36 league appearances to reach that tally.
Of course, the major difference is that Salah has remained at Liverpool following the best year of his career to date, whereas Suarez jumped ship without winning any silverware.
Salah is playing in a Liverpool team better equipped to finish the campaign with a trophy, which could lift the 26-year-old into the bracket of the club’s best ever players according to Fowler.
“I don’t think he qualifies at all,” Fowler added on Suarez.
“Which is my way of saying Salah has to stay for a lot longer and keep producing the form and goals he’s got so far, if he is ever going to be considered on a par with the likes of Rushie, who for me is the best striker of them all.
“I’m not even going to remotely compare him to Rush or the others in the top six goal-scorers. Why? Not because I don’t rate him, but because I’m waiting. For at least another five years, I reckon.
“He’s already got almost 60 goals for Liverpool and there’s a good chance he’ll go past Suarez and Fernando Torres this season on the all-time list. Those two got 82 and 81 respectively, and that’s not enough in terms of years or numbers.”
The post Suarez isn’t a Liverpool legend, but Salah could be – Fowler appeared first on Squawka News.
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