Liverpool forward’s trip to the King Power a year ago prefaced a patchy 2022 but he has now well and truly regained his mojo
iverpool face Leicester on Friday evening looking to win a fourth Premier League game in succession and strengthen their push for a top-four place. For one of their players the encounter also provides an opportunity for redemption, the chance to right a wrong from almost exactly a year ago and further demonstrate that after a difficult 12 months he is back to his very best.
Indeed, Mohamed Salah may well look back at events at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday, 28 December 2021 as when things turned against him. He went into the game against Leicester in sensational form having scored 22 goals in 24 appearances for a rampant Liverpool side. He, and they, appeared set for more joy on a chilly night in the east Midlands, especially given the hosts were in poor form and severely hampered by injuries, and everything appeared to be going to plan when on 15 minutes the visitors were awarded a penalty after a foul by Wilfred Ndidi on Salah. He took it himself, and then came the twist – the shot was saved by Kasper Schmeichel, with the Egyptian’s header from the subsequent rebound crashing against the bar.
Liverpool never recovered and went on to lose 1-0 after Ademola Lookman’s smartly taken goal on 59 minutes. It appeared a sizeable blow to their title hopes but, come the new year, Jürgen Klopp’s men were able to demonstrate the character and quality required to remain on Manchester City’s heels until the final stages of the final day, as well as winning two trophies and just missing out on Champions League glory. Salah played a part in that but his personal journey was altogether more rocky. With Egypt he lost the Africa Cup of Nations final and failed to qualify for the World Cup, while generally his eye for goal became blurry. He was still finding the back of the net but far less often and the 30-year-old may still be reflecting on what he could have achieved in 2022, for club and country, had he maintained his 2021 levels.
To a large extent that was impossible – such was Salah’s form in the early stages of last season, especially, that he was legitimately being hailed as the best player on the planet. It is difficult for any modern footballer not named Messi or Ronaldo to reside in such rarefied air, but given his confidence and class Salah will have believed he could have done so and, ultimately, avoided an annus horribilis post his King Power calamity. As he prepares to take on Leicester again it will, then, be a source of satisfaction for the forward that he is currently performing so well.
Salah has featured in each of Liverpool’s fixtures since the resumption of club football: the 3-2 defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup and the 3-1 league victory over Aston Villa on Boxing Day, scoring in both games and, in the latter in particular, looking his typical self. There was the ice-cold finish to give Liverpool the lead on five minutes, the composed assist that led to Virgil van Dijk making it 2-0 and an overall display of high intensity and quality, from a defensive as well as attacking point of view, seen in the fact that as well as having the second-highest XG of any player at Villa Park (0.84) and creating the joint-highest number of chances (four), he also made six recoveries and won a couple of duels.
A six-week break as others did battle in Qatar has clearly been good for Salah but it should be noted that he was catching the eye and contributing in the weeks prior to the World Cup, too, benefiting from a reconfiguration of Liverpool’s forward line in which he played closer to goal having essentially been deployed as a winger at the start of the season as Klopp went about integrating Darwin Núñez into the team after the striker’s £85m arrival from Benfica. It didn’t work, despite Salah and Núñez forming an immediate rapport, and through circumstance and choice, underpinned by a need by Klopp to improve Liverpool’s results, Salah returned more predominantly to a position between left centre-back and left-back, ready to drive across and between them and do what he does best – cause panic, create danger and, most of all, score goals.
He now has 16 in all competitions this campaign (along with six assists), with the one he got against Villa his 172nd for Liverpool since joining from Roma in 2017, putting him seventh in the club’s list of all-time goalscorers, alongside Kenny Dalglish. It is a stunning achievement and given Salah’s age, consistency, fitness record and the contract extension he signed in the summer, he is not only certain to surpass “the King” in Liverpool’s record books but also, more than likely, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard and Billy Liddell. Though Ian Rush, Roger Hunt and Gordon Hodgson may be out of reach. Like all of them he is, undeniably, an Anfield legend.
The legacy is secure but it is Salah’s relentless pursuit of excellence that makes him the player he is and, given his form and revitalised levels of energy and urgency, he appears primed to strive for more. And next in Salah’s sights are Leicester, a ghost of Christmas past he will no doubt be determined to vanquish prior to a prosperous new year.
