Neither Messi nor Cristiano: “If they gave me to choose any player for my team, it would be Salah”

Although Liverpool finished the 2020/2021 season blank – third place in the Premier League, Champions League quarter-finals and eighth in the Carabao Cup – Mohamed Salah closed the course with 31 goals (in 50 games) to his credit. That is to say, In a “bad” collective year, the Egyptian signed his second best scoring season since joining the team Red, after the 44 goals he achieved in 2017/2018. Hence, Alan Shearer, a historic former English footballer, cannot understand “how it is possible that he was only seventh in the last Ballon d’Or vote.” And it is that, in the words of Shearer himself, “Mohamed Salah is the best in the world right now. The best scorer and the best player, period.”.

The former Southampton, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle striker has performed for the middle The Athletic an analysis of the annotations (20 in 21 games) that the Egyptian accumulates so far this season. But beyond the scoring figures, the footballing peak that this course has reached is what also leads Shearer to place Mohamed Salah at the height of the best: “Week after week, year after year, Salah works magic. There is an obsession with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, which is understandable given how dominant they have been in the modern era, but if they gave me to choose any player for my team today it would be Salah “.

The Reds, who have qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League with a history of victories, are immersed in the fight for the Premier League as second classified, just one point behind the leaders, Manchester City. While completing a near-immaculate start to the season – just one loss so far this season – requires the performance of the entire team, “Salah is setting new standards,” writes Shearer in The Athletic. “I understand that he is playing in a brilliant team with great players around him, but he looks fast, energetic and fresh. I have no doubt that (…), at 29 years old, he is at the peak of his strength, at the best moment of his career “.

Goal after goal

Mohamed Salah’s season is being framed in a museum. Many of the many who bear the signature of the Egyptian striker could be classified as “works of art”, like the one he did to Manchester City last October. But more important than the beauty of the goals scored by the Liverpool striker are the rivals they have reached.. As the former English footballer collects in his analysis, “the little magician is doing his things in the best league in the world and he is doing it against the best teams and in the most important matches, be it Manchester City or Chelsea, Manchester United or Everton, Atlético de Madrid or AC Milan “. Of the 21 games that Salah has played this course, he has only been left without scoring or assisting in two: against Burnley on matchday 2 of the Premier League – the VAR annulled a goal – and at Anfield against Atlético de Madrid, in the Champions League. Data that speaks for itself.