A Liverpool Legend Sees the Future Greatness in Mohamed Salah

When you’re on top there are always fun people who will try and pull you down. Mohamed Salah is having another fantastic scoring season. With a haul of 16 goals so far, the Liverpool forward is the current Premier League top goalscorer, ahead of Harry Kane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

But not everyone is as excited by Salah’s prowess in front of goal as Liverpool supporters. Accusations of diving against the Egyptian have become the norm of late. Has Salah ever gone down easily in the box? Most certainly.

And as any aware fan can tell you, if a player doesn’t go down in the box after contact the ref isn’t going to call a penalty. It’s the contact that matters. And I’ve seen little evidence to suggest that Salah habitually takes advantage of those opportunities to coax a decision out of a referee.

But don’t take my word for it. Liverpool legend Ian Rush also recently came Salah defense over the diving criticisms.

“Mo Salah is not a diver,” said Rush.

“He’s an honest professional, he doesn’t deliberately go to ground.

“The fact is that he gets a lot of rough treatment from defenders. He’s too quick for a lot of them and they panic and foul him.

“I think he’s had some very unfair criticism. Look what happened at Bournemouth, he got fouled badly but stayed on his feet because he was so desperate to go on and score.”

Rush has surely been reminiscing about his old days in a swashbuckling Liverpool side while watching Jürgen Klopp’s team storm world football. He’s big on Salah’s ability to continue growing and Rush hopes Salah will remain a Red for many more years and join him and the others one day at the big, legends luncheon in the sky (R.I.P. in advance).

“Mo was incredible last season. For me, he was the best player in the world,” Rush said.

“At the start of this season it was more difficult for him. Teams had sussed him out a bit and were putting two men on him.

“But playing him through the middle has worked brilliantly. He’s become a better, more complete player. On a personal level he might not achieve what he did last season, but if he scores 30 goals and Liverpool win the title he’s had an even better season.

“People talk about Torres and Suarez, they were great players but they weren’t around long enough. I want Mo to stick around for a lot longer than them and become a true legend here.”

Ditto, bud.